Tahiti, the island paradise

by Nicholas Senn

TAHITI'S NATURAL BREAD SUPPLY

The Tahitians have no corn or grain of any kind out of which to make bread. They found in the forests excellent substitutes for bread, and more healthful for that climate, in the form of breadfruit, wild plantain and tubers rich in starch. This is the kind of bread they have been eating for centuries, and which they prefer to our bread to-day. When the island was densely populated and the demand on nature's resources exceeded the supply, the natives had to plant trees, roots and tubers in vacant spaces in the forest, high up on the mountainsides, where they grew luxuriantly without any or little care, and by these trifling efforts on the part of man the food-supply kept pace with the increase of the population. Trees and plants distributed in this manner found a permanent home in the new places provided for them, and have since multiplied, and thus increased greatly the annual yield. Evidences of dissemination of bread and fruit-yielding trees and plants by the intervention of man are apparent to-day throughout the island by the presence of cocoa-palms, breadfruit and other fruit trees, and plantains, in localities where nature could not plant them, in places formerly inhabited but abandoned long ago when the population became so rapidly decimated by the virulent diseases introduced into the island by the Europeans. To-day the fruit and fruit-supply is so abundant that it is within easy reach of every family and can be had without money and without labor. We will consider here a few of the most important substitutes for bread on which the Tahitians largely subsist:

TAHITIAN FRUIT VENDER

Breadfruit.—Breadfruit is the most important article of food of the Tahitians. It is the fruit of the breadfruit tree Arfocarpus incisiva (Linné), a tree of the natural order, Artocarpaceæ, a native of the islands of the Pacific Ocean and of the Indian Archipelago. This fruit is one of the most important gifts of nature to the inhabitants of the tropics, serving as the principal part of their food, the inner tough bark of the tree furnishing a good material for native cloth, while the trunk of the tree is used as a material for canoes. The exudation issuing from cuts made into the stem, a resinous substance, is in use for closing the seams of canoes. Several varieties of breadfruit trees are to be found in Tahiti, differing in the structure of their leaves and in the size and time of ripening of the fruit, so that ripe breadfruit is obtainable more or less abundantly throughout the year. The foliage of this tree is the greenest of all green, and it is this deep green which distinguished this tree at once from its neighbors. The male flowers are in catkins, with a two-leaved perianth and one stamen; the female flowers are nude. The leaves are large, pinnatifid, frequently twelve to eighteen inches long, smooth and glossy on their upper surface. The much branched tree attains a height of twenty to fifty feet. The fruit is a sorosis, a compound or aggregate the size of a child's head, round or slightly oblong, light green, fleshy and tuberculated on the surface. The rind is thick, and marked with small square or lozenge-shaped divisions, each having a small elevation in the middle. The fruit hangs by a short, thick stalk from the small branches, singly or in clusters of two or three together. It contains a white, somewhat fibrous pulp, which when ripe becomes juicy and yellow, but has then a rotten taste. The fruit is gathered for use before it is ripe, and the pulp is then white and mealy, of the consistence of fresh bread. The fruit is prepared in many ways for food, roasted on hot coals, boiled or baked, or converted by the experienced native cook into complicated dainty dishes. The common practice in Tahiti is to cut each fruit into three or four pieces and take out the core; then to place heated stones in the bottom of a hole dug in the ground; to cover them with green leaves, and upon this place a layer of the fruit, then stones, leaves and fruit alternately, till the hole is nearly filled, when leaves and earth to the depth of several inches are spread over all. In half an hour the breadfruit is ready; the outsides are, in general, nicely browned, and the inner part presents a white or yellowish cellular substance. Breadfruit prepared in this manner and by other methods of cooking is very palatable, as I can speak from my own experience, slightly astringent and highly nutritious, a most excellent dietetic article for the tropics. The tree is very prolific, producing two and sometimes three crops a year. When once this tree has gained a firm foothold in a soil it cherishes, and in a climate it enjoys, it exhibits a tenacity to reproduce itself to an extent often beyond desirable limits. Of this Captain Cook writes:

I have inquired very carefully into their manner of cultivating the breadfruit tree; but was always answered that they never plant it. The breadfruit tree plants itself, as it springs from the roots of the old ones, so that the natives are often under the necessity of preventing its progress to make room for trees of other sorts to afford some variety in their food.

The timber is soft and light, of a rich yellow color, and assumes when exposed to the air the appearance of mahogany.

Manioc.—Manioc is another important article of food in Tahiti and likewise serves as an excellent substitute for baker's bread. It is the large, fleshy root of Manihot utilissima, a large, half-shrubby plant of the natural order Euphorhiaceæ, a native of tropical America, and much cultivated in Tahiti as an article of food. In this island the plant has run wild in some of the ravines formerly inhabited. The plant grows in a bushy form, with stems usually six to eight feet high, but sometimes much higher. The stems are brittle, white, and have a very large pith; the branches are crooked. The leaves are near the ends of the branches, large, deeply seven-parted, smooth and deep green. The roots are very large, turnip-like, sometimes weighing thirty pounds, from three to eight growing in a cluster, usually from twelve to twenty-four inches in length. They contain an acrid, milky juice in common with other parts of the plant, so poisonous as to cause death in a few minutes; but as the toxic effect is owing to the presence of hydrocyanic acid, which is quickly removed by heat, the juice, inspissated by boiling, forms the excellent sauce called casareep; and fermented with molasses it yields an intoxicating beverage called onycou; whilst the root, grated, dried on hot metal plates and roughly powdered, becomes an article of food. It is made into thin plates which are formed into cakes, not by mixing with water, but by the action of heat, softening and agglutinating the particles of starch. The powdered root prepared in this manner is an easily digestible and nutritious article of farinaceous food. The root is largely made use of in the manufacture of starch and is exported from Tahiti for this purpose to a considerable extent. The starch made from this root is also known as Brazilian arrowroot, and from it tapioca is made. Manioc is propagated by cuttings of the stem, and is of rapid growth, attaining maturity in six months.

Sweet Cassava.—Sweet cassava is the root of Manihot Aipi, a woody plant indigenous to tropical South America, growing in great abundance in the dense forest of the mountain valleys of Tahiti. The plant grows to a height of several feet and has large long leaves growing from the foot of the stem. The root is reddish and nontoxic; it can therefore be used as a culinary esculent, without any further preparation than boiling, while its starch can also be converted into tapioca. The Aipi has tough, woody fibres, extending along the axis of the tubers, while generally the roots of the manioc (bitter cassava) are free from this central woody substance.

Arrowroot or Arru Root.—The commercial arrowroot is prepared from different starch-yielding roots, but the bulb of the Maranta marantaceæ produces more starch and of a better quality than any of the others. It is a native of the West Indies and South America, and is cultivated quite extensively in Tahiti. Many little patches of this plant may be seen along the road from Papeete to Papara, where the lowland soil is well adapted for its cultivation. The starch-producing plant which is cultivated most extensively in Tahiti and other South Sea Islands is the Tacca pinnatifolia. This perennial plant will even thrive well in the sandy soil near the shore. The stalk, with terminal spreading pinnatifid leaves, is from two to three feet high and the root is a tuber about the size of a small potato. The tacca starch is much valued in medicine, and is particularly used in the treatment of inflammatory affections of the gastro-intestinal canal.