Is there beef over canned corned beef?

Canned corned beef – a preserved meat cured in salt and spices - has been a cornerstone of Pasifika culinary culture over the past century.

Samoan chef Henry Onesemo, of Parnell restaurant Tala, says there’s been a battle of pride between the Palm and Pacific brands over who takes the top spot in the hearts of Pasifika communities.

For him, there’s no doubt that the Pacific brand takes the cake.

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“Anybody that eats Palm is probably from Australia … The thing with Palm though, they do make a bigger can,” Onesemo says.

“With Pacific, it’s a lot more fatty, I would say. Whereas Palm has a bit more aspic, that jelly [substance].”

Onesemo says he would never go two weeks without having corned beef. 

“It has the two most basic ingredients that every chef relies on - the most important ingredients - that's fat and salt, and that's why we love it.”

But those ingredients are exactly why Tongan-born chef Ana Mailei Savio, of online meal service Gia's Grab&Go, has stopped eating it.

“I'm those annoying people that go to family events and I'm like, ‘oh, who bought that corned beef?’” Savio says.

“People don't realise how much salt is in it. If they see how corned beef is made, they'd probably get put off.”

However, she says she did grow up eating corned beef and her wider family preferred Palm.

“I know my brothers still eat it. My mum does now and again when she has her little cravings. But I know my brother in London … he'll always ask my mum to take corned beef over.”

Otahūhū-based Eight Roses cafe and buffet co-owner and chef Freddy Tu'akalau says when he was a child in Tonga, Palm was more commonly bought.

“I think because it's the first one that came into Tonga and it’s got chunky meat inside, but Pacific is similar to it.”

He personally doesn’t pick favourites (“corned beef is corned beef”) but he reckons the increasing prices may play a role in their popularity.

“I just came back from Tonga … They go with the Pacific one [now] because it's cheap there.”

Tu'akalau says canned foods like fish and beef were the go-to when he was younger and food was scarce.

“I think Tongan is the same as the Samoan as well. Corned beef is like our number one food for us, like especially when it's something you can keep in the house for a long time.

“It’s easy as well, you don’t need to cook it or if you want to cook it [you can].”

Onesemo recalls when he was a child, corned beef was seen as luxury item that only the privileged could afford before it became more common.

“At that point, for me growing up, corned beef or boxes of corned beef had slowly replaced livestock as far as offerings were concerned.”

Beyond the culinary significance of canned corned beef, there’s a deep history behind how it came to be on the Pacific islands.

Onesemo says when the eastern and western parts of Samoa were occupied by Germany and America before World War I, the soldiers had bought their canned rations like spam and luncheon meat to shore too.

“Originally, the corned beef used to come into the country in those barrels before it then came into the can… before the soldiers got corned beef, they were getting barrels of pea soup. So pea soup translated into Samoa is ‘pi’ and then ‘supo’ is soup.

“So these barrels of pea soup, the soldiers got, were brought into the islands through those occupations. Eventually, the barrels of corned beef came through and Samoans just saw the barrel and just called it pisupo.” 

Onesemo’s go-to dish is sautéing onions with a can of corned beef and dumping some Wattie’s spaghetti on top.

At his restaurant, they pay homage to traditional flavours with a pisupo dish, where they make their own corned beef by pickling brisket in a brine of spices and salt. They then deep fry it and dehydrate it to get the oils out and use it in beef tartare.

“The most important thing you need to have in there is the pink salt. The pink salt keeps the meat from turning brown and that’s what gives corned beef that pink colour.

"You also you’ve got to be careful, because if you use too much of the pink salt, you’ll be using the bathroom for the rest of the day. So you’ve got to have a proper recipe when you’re doing it.”

Tu'akalau says there may be some fat on top when you first open a can, so you can first get rid of that and eat the rest as is or – his favourite way – stir fry tomatoes and onions before adding it to cooked yam or taro.

There are also traditional dishes that mix it in like palusami or lu pulu (a mix of taro leaves, corned beef and coconut cream) or can be incorporated into pies.

Before Savio transitioned out of eating corned beef, she tried it out with ravioli and hash. When she was growing up, it would often be served as a stew or with root crops like cassava, taro, and green bananas.