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Sauces and condiments from French Polynesia

Miti hue (Tahitian fermented coconut sauce)miti hue

Strips of coconut flesh are softened, covered with liquid squeezed from crushed raw prawn heads and sealed for a day to ferment. The liquid is thrown away and the coconut is shaken hard with fresh water into a sauce.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Miti hue itself.

DocumentedSauces and condiments24 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe amounts are the recipe published by French Polynesia's Direction de la Culture et du Patrimoine, made in a container the recipe calls a "gallon".
Green or yellow coconuts10Flesh scooped out, skin peeled off, cut into pieces about 1 cm by 4 cm[dcp2022]
Heads of large freshwater prawns (chevrettes)10Stomach removed; prawns frozen at least 48 h first[dcp2022]
WaterEnough to coverUsed twice, once with the crushed heads and once for shaking[dcp2022]
Chopped garlicOptional[dcp2022]
Starterother: liquid from crushed raw prawn heads

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h

Start
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What changes: White coconut flesh is cut into strips and softened in boiling water

Step 1 of 4
Cut the coconut flesh and soften it
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The DCP recipe boils the strips in water to soften them, then drains and cools them in the gallon container. Output: coconut strips about 1 cm by 4 cm.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Strips of coconut flesh are softened, covered with liquid squeezed from crushed raw prawn heads and sealed for a day to ferment. The liquid is thrown away and the coconut is shaken hard with fresh water into a sauce. Made in 4 steps over 24 h. The longest step, seal the coconut under the prawn liquid, takes 24 h (Direction de la Culture et du Patrimoine (DCP…).

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[dcp2022]Seal the coconut under the prawn liquid

What makes this one different

Miti hue ferments coconut flesh with an inoculum of raw prawn-head liquid, so the ferment comes from the shellfish, not from salt or a dairy culture. Taioro is made the same way with grated coconut.

Related ferments

Variants

  • TaioroGrated coconut fermented with raw prawn juice.
  • Hami and samilolo (Tonga and Samoa)A mature coconut is drilled, its water replaced with sea water, and the nut stoppered and left a few weeks until the flesh breaks down into a gruel (Wikipedia).

Safety

Raw freshwater prawns in French Polynesia can carry larvae of the rat lungworm, which causes eosinophilic meningitis. A study of 981 cases in Tahiti in 1957–1964 linked many to raw prawns or prawn juice in taioro and mitihue, and 16 of 42 cases in 2000–2012 had eaten taioro. French Polynesia's culture service tells cooks to freeze the prawns for at least 48 hours before use and not to eat mitihue made with unfrozen prawns, but it gives no freezing temperature. CDC advises against raw or undercooked freshwater shrimp where the parasite occurs, and nothing in this recipe cooks the prawn liquid.

Hazards the sources name: Angiostrongylus cantonensis (rat lungworm) larvae in raw freshwater prawns, a parasite, not a microbe.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Rat lungworm larvae were first recovered from prawns in Tahiti in 1962. In an early 1960s case series there, 28 of 30 eosinophilic meningitis cases were traced to raw prawns or taioro (Turck et al. 2022).

  1. [dcp2022] Direction de la Culture et du Patrimoine (DCP), Polynésie française, La préparation du mitihue, "Le saviez-vous ?", 2022gov
  2. [turck2022] Turck H.C., Fox M.T., Cowie R.H. 2022, Paratenic hosts of Angiostrongylus cantonensis and their relation to human neuroangiostrongyliasis globally, One Health 15:100426paper
  3. [cdc-angiostrongylus] US CDC, Preventing Angiostrongylus infectiongov
  4. [wp] Wikipedia, Miti hue (outline only; cites Aitken 1930, Serra-Mallol 2010, Fatiaki 1991, Pritchard 1866)wiki