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Hello, Christmas Island!
By JULIETTE ROSSANT  One day not too long ago, I noticed that superchefblog had been visited by someone from a place called Christmas Island, Australia. Now, I have heard of a lot of places called Christmas, my favorite being Christmas Cove, Maine, but not this one. So, I looked for it on the map and found a wonderful relief map (below) in the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection of the University of Texas at Austin and even an official stamp (right), the likes of which I had never seen. According to the CIA World Fact Book, Christmas Island was discovered on its namesake day by the Brits in 1643 and held as a British protectorate. Settlement began in 1888, phosphate mining in the 1890s. Britain transferred sovereignty to Australia in 1958. Two thirds of the island is a national park of 85 square kilometers (that's just under 33 square miles, or a little over 5 x 6 miles for the math-challenged), according to the Australian Department of Environment and Heritage (now there is a liberal-sounding government department!). Besides the post-industrial phosphate-mining glories of Christmas Island National Park, I was of course interested in the food, so I looked for restaurants and local fruits and vegetables. The Christmas Island Tourism Association (CITA) lists 17 restaurants, which is quite a few for a tiny island that is mostly nature preserve, so, in honor of restaurateurs in remote locations, here is the official list as of May 2004:Golden Bosun (Chinese) Wah-Hoo Cafe Tracks Tavern Rumah Tinggi Christmas Island Club Season's Palace Malay Club Sukaramai (Malay) Poon Saan Club (Chinese) Cla Noodle House (Chinese) Seaview Rockfall Cafe Poon Saan Pool Hall Silver Birch Garden (Chinese) Barney's Crisp Chicken Poon Su Coffee Shop Grubz Up Cafe  The famed food is Christmas Island's Red Crab (gecarcoidea natalis), described in 1888. There are millions of them (those are red crabs in the photo above, crossing the street with a bicyclist during migration) and their life cycle well documented, but I see little evidence that they are served cold or hot, if you take my meaning... The vegetation includes 126 species unique to Australia, but again there is no mention of food. Perhaps considering the delicate ecosystem as well as the 28 rare or threatened species, Christmas Island does not want to encourage tourists to gorge on its exotica. I'm intrigued... "ecotourism"? There is also a Christmas Island Internet Administration, though I could not determine whether there is an Internet cafe or availability through hotels. Rates are not cheap, but then one major point in going all the way to Christmas Island would be to get away from it all, right? Not that Christmas Island is unaffected by world events, even the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia -- yes, the recent big news was a Perth judge's conviction of a Pakistani man for smuggling Afghan refugees from Indonesia -- that's right -- to Christmas Island.Let us wish these islanders, online and not, well: Merry Christmas, Christmas Island! (If you want to say Merry Christmas to Christmas Island, just email them at cita@christmas.net.au. |
posted by Juliette Rossant at 12/25/2004 03:41:00 PM
1 Comments:
Juliette,
Thanks for the interesting article on Christmas Island.
Food on the island would comprise of a large variety of seafood and shellfish. Despite being an atoll, the island has coral reefs and then not too far out, the water depth plunges in the deep blue of the Indian Ocean where many fast-swimming fish varieties roam. Mackerals, yellowtails, sailfish, barracudas, tuna, flying fish and many others.
Born and grew up on the Island at a time when there were limited conservation regulations and the island yet to be declared a National Park, we occasionally sampled the land-crab varieties like the robber-crab and the blue-crab. They are just magnificent. Of course, they are now in the protected species listing.
No one eats the red crab for no valid reasons apart from the abundance of them. Some people would boil them up, cracked the shells and leave them for their chickens to pick out the meat.
On this restful Sunday, I was pondering over if the tsunami had impacted the re-generation of the red crabs. Annually in December, the red crabs would venture out from their land burrows and migrate to the ocean to spawn.
If the tsunami struck at a time while the eggs are "incubating" in water, a generation of red crabs could be wiped out. Lets hope not.
The 'accidental tourist' crazy yellow ants are slowly killing off a large population of the red crabs on a continual basis. I believe there is no solution to stop the carnage to date.
-- S.H.Tan
(currently residing in Singapore)
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