An incredible food experience you can only have in Vanuatu

The strong smell of fish wafts through the air as we make our way through the crowds at Port Vila Market. Weaving through the aisles, we pass colourful displays of exotic fruit, tables laden with bunches of peanuts, and vegetables such as sweet potato lying in bags woven from coconut leaves on the floor.

Our search for the national dish, laplap, takes us to the outer edge of the open-air pavilion, where a row of older women - affectionately known as "mamas" - are standing with their backs to the bay. A range of options are laid out before them.

Laplap, my guide Beverly Teahiu explains, varies greatly throughout Vanuatu, with each island having its own style. Generally, it is made with a paste made from grated bananas, breadfruit and root vegetables such as cassava, taro or yam, which is wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground oven with thick coconut milk, and served with beef, pork or fish. I choose the beef, which is served wrapped in foil. Spicy and moreish, it tastes like a cross between a pastie and a meat pie. I quickly realise why it's so popular throughout the archipelago.

"People back in the villages have all the ingredients they need to make laplap, so they don't need money," Beverly says. "They have vegetables growing in their garden, they have coconuts on trees, firewood to do baking. They have chickens outside or get fish from the sea."

The dish is served on Sundays after church and on special occasions, such as birthdays or to celebrate the birth of a baby, and during periods of mourning. "When I was a girl, I would look forward to the evenings when they opened the laplap and we'd all sit around eating it," Beverly says. "It was very exciting for me." Tourists interested in trying this delicious concoction can get a taste at hotels and resorts during their weekly island feasts, but if you ask me, it's way more fun to queue up at the market and enjoy it alongside the locals.

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