Coffee by the Ocean: The Melting Pot that is Guam

Hektor making the most of the left overs: Photo by Paul King

            Guam is a tiny place that most Americans have never heard of, way out in the Pacific Ocean, as in about 5,800 miles away from San Francisco is an island that takes up 210 square miles in area. A tiny speck of green in a literal ocean of blue. Like most tropical islands on our planet, Guam has seen her share of people that want to take the island as their own and have no real idea what to do with it. The larger world discovered it on one of Magellan’s famous voyages and after that Guam’s period of colonization had officially begun. Changing hands from the Spanish to the Americans, to the empire of Japan, then finally back to America, Guam has had a lot of empires influencing this lush green speck and it shines through in some weird ways. The village that I’m staying in Yigo but pronounced as “Gigo” because one of the holdovers from the Spanish language is the “Y” pronunciation. Silly little slips like this show the disparity between locals and tourists, the next time you find yourself in Kentucky try calling the city Louis-Ville rather than the colloquial “louivulle” and you’ll know what I mean. Language quirks aside, the not so little thing that stands out the most is the food.

            Guam has taken the Bruce Lee method for their situations and taken what is useful and discarded the rest. Do you ever wake up in the morning and think to yourself that you want a barbeque brisket musubi? Of course not, that’s too many layers of things that we don’t normally attribute to each other, but the taco shack in Piti has them. Guam has taken the best of the food of her colonizers and made them her own. The brisket is different from the kind that you would find in Austin but the bark and spice and buttery crunch that you would expect from Texas is there plus the seaweed and jasmine rice that you would expect with a Japanese musubi. `It’s the best of both worlds and by putting them together in the mountains and beaches of this tiny island, they have made unique and exclusive dishes into their own signature that would not be the same in San Antonio or Misawa. Guam is an American territory so the CHamoro people -not a typo. The language does not have the “CH ” sound so it is officially capitalized- here are American but they have no voting representatives in congress and very little voice on the national scale. More than an interesting bit of trivia about how Guam is where America’s day begins, Guam remains untouched by one of the biggest problems facing us on the mainland.

Guam and Hawaii are the only places in the United States that can grow their own coffee.

Photo by Paul King

Big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target demand standardization. They want you to be able to know where the bathrooms are in one of their three store layouts no matter where you are in the country. This makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint, two different stores on different sides of the country would have identical needs if everything’s the same. The solution to the company’s problem is the same bland custard that metastases through the country. If the biggest and most popular store in any city is the same in every city then there is very little difference between the experience in Branson and Bismark. Guam does not have this problem mostly because the closest that they come to a Target is one of the last remaining K-Marts in the world. Every village, every little mom and pop red rice restaurant is entirely different and entirely its own thing. I have lived here for two years. I don’t think I’ve had the signature chicken kelaguen the exact same way twice.

For me, chicken kelaguen is Guam. This bright citrus zesty shredded chicken on flatbread or a tortilla is something that feels unique to this little island and it is the perfect showcase of the CHamaro spirit. The ability to overcome the situation that you’ve been placed in and make it your own in the best way possible. The ingredients and the process to make it are simple as far as culinary skills go but this simple dish is more than the sum of its parts. Lime, coconut, sometimes soy sauce and time go in and magic comes out. There’s something about the refreshing citrus of it that puts it head and shoulders above the greasy, cheese covered grilled chicken that my midwestern trained mind went to the first time a friend tried to explain it to me.  In fact, my story telling of it will always be a pale comparison to what it should be. At six foot four and blonde, I don’t blend in much of anywhere but not at all on a tropical island. That’s why I’m meeting a friend of mine at the Tu re’ Cafe in Haganta to talk kelaguen.

The view from the Tu Re’ patio: Photo by Paul King

Tu re’ is right along the beach and it’s a fun little brunch spot. Today the sun is dancing off the waves and the smell of artisanal coffee and eggs is undercut by the saltwater in the air. Like Guam, my friend has made the best of his situation. He sits across from me speaking English with the kanji for samurai tattooed on his hand, prominently displayed as he lifts up his bathtub sized coffee cup. Cliff runs a Jiu-Jitsu gym on this side of town and apart from the few years he spent in the American military he had lived on the beaches and mountains of Guam.

“No man, Kelaguenis a style of preparing the chicken, it’s not only chicken though. You can get kelaguen anything. Think of it like ceviche.” This blew my mind and I hadn’t thought of it like that. Parrot fish kelaguen would be something entirely different but still very Guam. In fact, the lemon, and coconut mixed with anything makes for a resilience that I’ve only seen here. An island that the larger world knows as a trivia question or as a concept but is a real tangible place with real people.

Chicken kelaguen is what I know so that’s what I’m comfortable trying to share. Salt and pepper your chicken thighs, not breast, on the mainland we keep thinking of the breast as the best cut of the chicken but it just won’t stand up to the next step the way that the thigh will. Next, broil the seasoned thighs until crispy. Pull them out and shred them into a marinade of coconut milk, lemon, soy sauce if you must, and chilis. Let that marinate for no less than an hour but ideally overnight. Thats it. Like I said, it’s more that the sum of its parts. A lot like this island, more than what you see on the surface. With the political tensions the way that they are, its easy to see the military influences on Guam. Japanese has kicked out the base of American marines and they will soon be finding themselves added to the territory of Guam. This far into the Pacific, it’s easy to notice that Guam would be the first real target in any world war three scenario, and that begs the question: Is the American military presence making Guam a target or is it the fact that Guam exists that makes her a target? The American empire touches every aspect of our planet and there really is no way around the effect that it holds here. Locals enlist at three times the rate of the mainland population and military bases take up about a third of the island’s land mass, would the CHamoro be a target with that military presence? Does it even matter at this point? As I sit across from my friend, an American veteran that has devoted his life to a Japanese martial art, drinking coffee that was roasted in the foothills of the mountain that we are in the shadow of, I see it.

I see the spirit and tenacity of a people that make the most of the hand that they are dealt. They take what they have and they make something that no one else could. They make chicken kelaguen.