French Polynesia

Many people say let's go to Tahiti, when in fact Tahiti is just one of the 118 islands that make up this vast archipelago of French Polynesia scattered across a mere four million square kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean! Despite the distances separating them, the five archipelagos of coral cays and atolls are so tiny that their total land area is just one-thousandth of that area – a mere 4,000 square kilometres. To make things simpler (or would that be more complicated?) this distant outpost of France is also often referred to as Tahiti and Her Islands. These islands are part of the Society Islands – the name given them by Captain Cook when he visited them in 1769 on assignment by the Royal Society in England.  Read more...

The Marquesas, also in French Polynesia, subtitled appropriately 'the land of men' is said to be the most remote island group in the world, and are composed of twelve islands. Six are inhabited but the remainder are rocky dots in this forgotten corner of the Pacific Ocean.

For hundreds of years the Marquesan people lived untroubled by outsiders. Related to Hawaii both geographically and racially their culture survived despite a disturbing habit of dining on the conquered enemy. As we travelled Nuku Hiva we were shown places – such as a deep hole near the roots of a huge tree – where a person would be kept awaiting their turn in the pot. A sort of cannibal's cold larder. Read more....

Then there is uru, or breadfruit, one of the starchy staples of the Polynesian diet. It's hard to believe that this huge fruit, the size of a basketball, is from the mulberry family of plants.

A favourite way to prepare them is to wrap them in leaves and place in a pit of hot stones which is then covered with earth. These days families mainly do this for Sunday lunch, but it means everyone is welcome – and can be assured of beginning the new week very well-fed indeed! These breadfruit, a relative of jakfruit will bake here until the skin blackens then they will be carefully lifted out, the skin chipped away to reveal soft white flesh that smells and tastes surprisingly like fresh-from-the-oven bread! Read more...

Fiji Islands:

By 1643, when Abel Tasman’s sailing vessels hove into view on the permanently storm-clouded horizon beyond the reefs and their frill of waves, the locals had been well established for around three thousand years. Where they had come from is lost in tribal histories, but most Fijians today seem to believe that their ancestors voyaged from mid-eastern Africa. Skirting Australia (too barren, too forbidding?) sidestepping the spice islands, and then carried past New Guinea on strong currents and they were eventually deposited in a land they could not resist. Read more...

The Fijian diet is rich in fresh tropical fruit and vegetables, often bought at the daily markets. Pawpaw, breadfruit, mango, pineapple and coconuts along with taro and sweet potato are the basis of many dishes. See also....

Kava is the national drug of choice, sold openly in markets, grown in every village, and used as a nightcap after dinner most nights by the locals. This drink, made from the powdered root of an unattractive bush from the pepper family is a national calmative. One drink, offered in welcome at almost any social gathering - a visit to a village, a chance meeting, a formal meal - will do little more than gently numb your tongue, and make you wonder what on earth the locals see in this slightly bitter, mainly medicinal-tasting brew that looks like dirty dishwater. Read more...

Fleurieu region of South Australia:

The Fleurieu Peninsula situated to the south of Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills is a delightful, fertile wine-land that also produces nuts, olives, berries, venison, dairy products, almonds, honey, farmhouse cheeses and trout. The principal towns are McLaren Vale, Willunga, Goolwa, and Victor Harbor but you can think of it as having three parts: the northern central wine-growing area, the coastal strip, and the southern area.

So abundant is the produce that if there were doors on this region they would be inscribed, 'Gourmet Food Hall'. As there aren't, we are all freely invited to wander in, sample the produce, buy some of it to take home, coming away with a basketful of goodies and the resolve to return. 

Figs:

Figs are a member of the mulberry family, and an English proverb advises ' peel a fig for a friend and a peach for your enemy'. We do not know if this is because figs have been traditionally linked to fertility but the down-side is that they have also been accused of increasing sweat and encouraging lice. Interestingly fig trees do not flower, the 'fruit' that we eat is the blossom and is pollinated by a special type of wasp. It is believed that the Phoenicians introduced figs into India and China and they were also used by the Roman armies. Plato was fond of them and they are spoken of in the Bible – Isaiah used them to heal skin problems. Like dates, the food value increases with drying – one dried fig has almost as much calcium as an egg – and they will keep much longer than fresh figs which are fragile, needing refrigeration and use within a few days. Long used as a laxative, figs rely on an enzyme that reacts in the bowel, rather than fibre to achieve the desired effect. The fresh fruit is best eaten raw although it may be lightly baked with goat's cheese, or poached for a dessert. Dried figs make good snacks or an addition to cakes and desserts although some people do not like the crunchy seeds.

For a delicious way to serve fresh figs see this....

Fichi d'India:

One of the most painful foods to eat (painful, that is if you try to handle them with your fingers) are fichi d’India, literally ‘figs of India’ or, as some know them, prickly pear. They are not figs, nor are they from India – instead named for the inhabitants of the Americas where they are indigenous.

Anyone who has travelled through Sicily and southern Italy as we did a few years ago (see my book Just a Little Italian) will remember the huge cactus plants growing on roadsides and dotted incongruously in fields.

Those pale-green pads the size of tennis racquets are spiked with vicious thorns, and the plump red or yellow egg-shaped fruit that grow from them are just as dangerous. Their skin is a booby trap full of the finest, almost invisible hairlike spines which attach themselves to clothes and skin without invitation.

Southern Italians have long prized this fruit for a number of reasons. It grows readily in hot arid soil, and it is generous with the fruit it provides. It is free food for foragers, a plus in the past when these regions were sorely poverty-stricken.

Do you have other favourite places or foods beginning with F?