School hosts Traditional Food Day
Vaigaga Primary School held a “traditional food day” to teach students how to cook traditional Samoan food while reviving traditional knowledge which is slowly fading away.
The programme was held at Vaigaga Primary School on Thursday with the Principal Fata Tafaomalo Sione telling the Samoa Observer in an interview that it is an annual programme for their school.
“Our programme for this quarter is cooking food, and the hope is for the children to take a look at how traditional Samoan food is made,” Fata said.
“It is also good because the parents have the opportunity to come and help the teachers and students in preparing it.
“It is an annual programme of the school, just one day, especially now, the importance of this is that exams are near and also Government exams, it is useful for the students to see and learn about the preparation of Samoan food for the exams.”
According to Fata, they do not have culture days like other schools so they focused on the preparation of traditional Samoan food.
“It is important to prioritise Samoan food,” he said.
Fata said many of students do not know how to cook Samoan food such as Vaisalo, Kokoesi, Sua fai.
Looking to the future, Fata emphasised that this will be useful for students in terms of learning and added that Samoan food is healthy.
According to the Principal there are plans to make Samoa traditional food available at the canteen but he lamented that students only favored “fast food”.
He said parents also made a big contribution in the community and emphasised that students have a lot of interest in learning how to cook Samoan traditional food.
He added that this will revive the knowledge of preparing these type of food as it is rarely done in urban areas in Samoa
“If you don’t do it then you wouldn’t learn,” he said.