Tahitian Cuisine and Recipes

The first settlers are believed to have come from Southeast Asia by about 800 AD. Having discovered the island, these expert navigators returned to their homelands not only for their families but also for plants and animals, which is just as well as, like so many isolated oceanic islands , it is out of physical reach of many mainland plants and animals. There were no native animals on Tahiti apart from a few reptile species and some birds. The earliest Tahitian diet consisted of fish and seafood, pork and chicken,  tropical fruit and vegetables such as taro, breadfruit and yams.

The first Europeans to visit the area were the English in 1767 and it was Captain Cook who is believed to have introduced cattle to the island. Oh, and remember Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame? He first arrived there in 1788 to collect the Breadfruit saplings for onward transport to the West Indies.

British missionaries arrived in the islands in 1797. They did their best to control and "civilise" the natives and by 1815 had secured a strong influence over the whole of Tahitian culture.

By 1880 the French declared Tahiti a French Colony. In 1957,  the whole of French Polynesia became a French Overseas Territory and has been internally self-governing since 1984. Obviously, throughout this long period French influences took hold, not only in the cuisine but also in the language, government and culture.

The Chinese influence started as a direct result of the American Civil War. In 1884 in an attempt to ease the worldwide cotton shortage caused by the War, British born William Stewart obtained a permit to import Chinese workers as labourers on his huge cotton plantations in the south of Tahiti. By 1866 there were more than 1000 Chinese in Tahiti.