Unarguably, the best way to prepare umu is inside a hole in the ground.
Go find a nice flat land, preferably your mother in law’s lawn, gather friends, ask them to bring wine. You’ll need a well amplified turntable playing mania #11 on a loop.
Cut the grass using a flat shovel, four or six square pieces of 50 cms, lifting the grass with its roots and some soil, move aside. Now you have a clean area of about 1.5 mts square, dig in it to a depth of about 50 cms (come on, it will make you sweat profusely but you NEED this shallow grave to feel the magik of Easter Island’s UMU!). Make a ring inside the hole with some nice river stones, as flat and round as you can find them, about 20 cms in diameter, and in its center make a good bonfire, like in comics, some conical formation of stuff that’s gonna burn. Now on top of the hole, ground level, resting on the sides of the grave, make a bed with 6 pieces wood (best if they are two-by-four planks) like a grid, and on top of them, some more stones (in and out of the hole, two dozens stones all in all). Now light the bottom fire, the one inside the hole. The idea is that the wood bed on top of the fire will hold the stones while they get very hot, then at one point everything will collapse into the hole and you will have a bed of coals and hot stones. Rearrange the burning mess until you’re able to remove all the burnt wood and leave a nice bed of red-hot stones. Now empty a sack of clams, or mussels, or crab legs, or lobster goddammit! or all of them, on top of the stones, cover it using a prehistoric plant with leaves the size of towels (you can use cabbage leaves too). Add a layer of clean potatoes, fava beans, sweet peas, green beans (all with skin). Cabbage. Use metal pans for a layer of fish, chicken, smoked pork, sausage links… all kinds of deliciousness, ANYTHING! Cabbage. Finally, cover with a couple of clean wet cloths. Put the grass back on it (roots up). Drink and be merry and very careful not to burn yourself when you undo this pile after one hour.
See? Just like a pressure cooker!

Text by Diego Fernandez