What local dishes should I try in Micronesia, and where should I look for them?

The FSM's table is 4 tables. Pohnpei's is the most storied, and it begins with a drink that is not a drink: sakau, the kava of Pohnpei, made by pounding fresh kava root on great flat stones with hand stones (the rhythmic pounding is audible across Kolonia at dusk), the pulp squeezed through hibiscus bark fibre into coconut-shell cups. Sakau is sacrament, sedative and social contract in 1 — served first to rank at feasts, drunk in silence-heavy rounds at the town's sakau bars and markets in the evening, its effect a slow, numbing calm entirely unlike alcohol (which Pohnpei treats as the inferior import). The food around it runs on the island's rain-fed abundance: dozens of breadfruit varieties (Pohnpei is a breadfruit diversity hotspot, with named cultivars counted past 100 in agricultural surveys), taro and yams from the interior gardens, reef fish and mangrove crab, and the island's world export — Pohnpei pepper, grown in the forest gardens and prized by chefs internationally for its citrus-heat, which seasons tables at home and appears in every souvenir shop honestly earned. Kolonia's restaurants (the Joy and the Sei are the long-running names) serve the sashimi-and-rice canon of the Pacific port town; the markets sell the produce; the sakau bars, from about 4 p.m., sell the evening.

Chuuk's plate is taro-forward (pounded taro and breadfruit preparations — the fermented breadfruit paste called ep is Chuuk's keeping-technology, cousin to the Marshalls' bwiro), with lagoon fish, imported rice and the dive-resort tables (the Blue Lagoon Resort's restaurant is the state's dining room for visitors) feeding the wreck fleet's crews. Yap eats ceremonially: taro and yams are prestige crops with graded varieties, feasts are ranked presentations (a Yapese feast's food layout is a social document), fish is reef-and-lagoon fresh, and the meal's true center is often the betel nut — buw — chewed with pepper leaf and lime before, after and instead of courses; visitors are offered it as welcome, and the etiquette (accept the nut even if you chew briefly and discreetly set it aside later; never refuse flatly from a chiefly hand) is the state's first table lesson. Kosrae closes the quartet with the east's clarity: taro, breadfruit, bananas and the island's famous limes and tangerines, reef fish, and a church-shaped week in which Sunday's after-service family lunch is the island's great meal and visitors eat where they stay — the small resorts' kitchens (the Kosrae Nautilus and Pacific Treelodge among them) cooking the catch with island produce.

Across all 4 states the constants are tuna (the FSM sits atop some of the world's richest skipjack grounds, and its sashimi is a birthright), coconut in every register, and the honest import layer (rice, ramen, tinned fish and meat) that arrived with the copra trade and stayed. Water discipline follows the Pacific rule: town supplies are treated in Kolonia and the state centres; outer islands and rain tanks mean boiled or bottled.

A Kolonia sakau bar at dusk: men around the pounding stone, the hand stones rising and falling in rhythm, hibiscus fibre being wrung into a coconut cup, and the whole street slowing to the sound.

Sakau has a strength dial the visitor cannot see: the same root yields a mild social cup or a famously heavy one (sakau en Pohnpei is widely considered the Pacific's strongest kava preparation, drunk fresh rather than dried-powder style), and the honoured guest is served early and strong — accept the cup with both hands, drink it in 1 draught as custom directs, and clear no plans for the hour after. The second detail is pepper's provenance: "Pohnpei pepper" sold in Kolonia's airport and craft shops is the genuine article from island gardens — buy it there, where the purchase reaches the growers, rather than from resellers abroad at 4 times the price and none of the story.

• Sakau at dusk in Kolonia — 1 cup, taken properly, then the evening left empty on purpose
• Market lunches by state — Kolonia's market for breadfruit and produce; Weno's for taro; the catch eaten where it landed
• Feast food by invitation — Yap's ranked presentations and Kosrae's Sunday lunch reached through hosts, not bookings

Sakau's etiquette is a minefield in the polite sense: it is woven into chiefly protocol (at a traditional feast, the serving order is rank made visible — do not reach, do not rush, follow your host's cues), its effects forbid driving and mix badly with alcohol, and some visitors find the numbing calm stronger than expected — dose is the host's decision, and declining after the first cup is done gracefully, with thanks. Yap's betel nut stains teeth and floors red and carries the same accept-gracefully etiquette; Kosrae's Sunday closes restaurants and resort kitchens run to set hours; Chuuk's dining scene beyond the dive resorts is thin (eat where you dive); and across the FSM, imported-food supply follows the ships and the Hopper's cargo holds, so menus contract between deliveries. Ciguatera risk on reef fish is the Pacific standard — eat the species and sizes locals eat, from the reefs they name.

In Kolonia, spend 1 evening at a sakau bar before any feast invitation arrives — the rehearsal makes you a competent guest — and take home pepper, not shells.