Ever heard of Polynesia? Well it's commonly referred to as the Polynesian Triangle and is the largest of the three major cultural groups in the pacific, it includes islands ranging from New Zealand to Hawaii. That gives you an idea of how big Polynesia is because New Zealand's northern most islands is roughly 4,606 miles from Hawaii which makes me think that this could be it's own entire continent. Which is why I plan to evaluate every single island of Polynesia excluding Hawaii because that's apart of the US. So let's do this!
French Polynesia
CUISINE
As we all know, the French are very fancy. But before I go on, this country encompasses over 10 different islands just so you know. Anyways, a blog called Countries And Their Cultures described the cuisine of FP as mostly Polynesian Seafood and French-Inspired Recipes. Now this may sound good until take in to consideration that the French kind of like to stuff everything in their mouths. For example this recipe in French Polynesia which was mostly inspired by the French.
Vanilla Scented Sweet Potatoes Cream
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
800 g sweet white potatoes
1 vanilla been
150 g sugar
2 glasses lukewarm water or milk
Cooking Instructions:
Ready all the ingredients and tools. Clean the potatoes and cook them unpeeled in slightly sugared water for 30 to 40 min. The potatoes have to be well cooked (the skin breaks and gets loose). Drain and peel. Mix the potatoes with the sugar and the vanilla (only the seeds inside the vanilla been) and a little water. Add water according to the consistency required and add sugar according to taste. Chill before serving. Serve the cream in cups.
That sounds both appetizing and disgusting, think about it. You're stuffing cups of cream into your mouth hole and that cream smells like vanilla, was made in milk, and mostly consists of potatoes. I want that but I'll regret it, I don't care just give a glass! Now a popular food in French Polynesia is called a Poe and no matter how much I researched, I could not find a single definition of what a Poe was. So I'm going to give it a definition based off of it's ingredients. So a Poe is a bunch of natural ingredients cooked together, it will (Based off of the recipes I have) always contain some form of coconut, 200 g of Manioc Starch, Castor Sugar, and soupspoon oil. I can't make out what it'll be like so here is two Poe recipes.
Taro Poe
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
3 taros
1 banana leaf
1 pineapple
500 g manioc starch
1 soupspoon oil
Castor sugar
1 vanilla been
2 grated coconuts
Cooking Instructions:
Weight and prepare all ingredients. Wash and peel the taro and the pineapple. Cut the taro into cubes and cook in sugar water (1 soupspoon). Coarsely grate the pineapple. Prepare the banana leaf in passing it rapidly over a flame to soften it, brush with oil. Press the out the coconut mild and put aside. Drip the cooked taro and mash. Check the quantity of the taro � for 2 volumes taro, add 1 volume starch and ½ volume sugar. The quantity of sugar can be adjusted according to taste. Mix well and add the vanilla (inside of been only). Spread the �poe� in the middle of the banana leaf. Fold carefully and put on a slightly oiled baking sheet of in a mound. Bake in the oven at 150o to 175o (Pos. 5-6) for about 45 min. Careful, the banana leaf will smell burnt however the �poe� might not be cooked yet. Check the cooking. Once baked remove from the oven and unfold the banana leaf carefully. Put the �poe� on a service plate and cut, pour the coconut milk. Serve with coconut milk to add.
Banana Poe
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
6 cooking bananas
1 banana leaf
200 g manioc starch
1 soupspoon oil
Castor sugar
1 vanilla been
200 ml coconut milk
Cooking Instructions:
Prepare all ingredients. Wash and cook the bananas with skin in water for 15 min. check the cooking. Prepare the banana leaf in passing it rapidly over a flame to soften it, brush with oil. Drip the cooked bananas, peel then mash. Check the quantity � for 2 volumes banana, add 1 volume starch and ½ volume sugar. The quantity of the sugar can be adjusted according to taste and ripeness of the bananas. Mix well and add the vanilla (inside of the been only). Spread the �poe� in the middle of the banana leaf. Fold carefully and put on a slightly oiled baking sheet or in a mould. Bake in the oven at 160o to 175o (Pos. 5-6) for about 45 min. Careful, the banana leaf will smell burnt however the �poe� might not be cooked yet. Check the cooking. Unfold the banana leaf carefully. Put the �poe� in a plate, cut into large dices and pour ¾ of the coconut milk. Serve with the remaining quarter of the coconut milk.
ATTRACTIONS
Okay, I am not kidding there literally only 5 points of interest and 3 of them are museums and those three museums are the Robert Wan Pearl Museum, the Paul Gaugin Museum, and the one museum I'll be focusing on, Musée de Tahiti et des Îles. Which is something for a language that I don't know. It is a museum that was made to conserve and restore Polynesian artifacts and cultural practices. It's purely an ethnographic museum meaning that it focuses on, well, people and culture. Sorry for the short attraction part but there's not much to cover here.
PEOPLE
No joke, official language is French. That's it. The only minorities there are lower than 1% and you'll probably never encounter these like 5 people that speak Tahitian or something. The economy there isn't as simple as everybody does this though. The currency of French Polynesia is the CFP Franc which is the worst possible currency you could have right now because 1 US Dollar equals about 100 CFP Franc, so it's a good idea to bring your own money there because you'll probably be the richest person on the island you're on. Oh, and thank the lord that the murder rate is 3.4, to give an idea of how amazing that is, the US's murder rate as of 2010 was a 9.8 which makes no sense because French Polynesia has no competence in justice, education, safety, and defense. That should mean that the streets should be running rapid down the street and yet there isn't.
French Polynesia earns a
44
American Samoa
CUISINE
Okay so Sunday is a day of rest of the people of American Samoa, where many families would congregate and share a umu which is a hot oven of rocks, they place foods on these rocks to cook the food, together and have a Sunday afternoon meal. Sometimes for this meal, they place entire pigs in the umu along with mushrooms. But the most popular ingredient in Samoan dishes is coconut, for example the palusami, a parcel of coconut cream wrapped in taro leaves and they then bake it in the umu. The palusami is eaten whole including the leaves and is rich in taste due to the coconut filling. So after some research I found that somebody in the US made Keke Puaa which is little dough balls filled with a filling made of pork, onions, garlic, and soy sauce. In fact you may find Keke Puaa in many Chinese restaurants. A popular drink among American Samoans is the Vaimeleni, a watermelon drink made of mostly fruits and coconuts.
ATTRACTIONS
There is a park called the National Park Of American Samoa, it shows you mainly what an everyday south pacific island would look like in the wilderness, it contains sights, sounds, and experiences you could never experience in the US. A famous beach in American Samoa is the Ofu Beach which is described by many as a true paradise and by others as a marine version of the National Park of American Samoa. Our final attractions is another popular beach, the two dollar beach. One person went to the beach when it was raining but the beach was still amazing! Another person went snorkeling their and the water was very shallow and was just the perfect snorkeling level! The two dollar beach is very famous for it's snorkeling and marine life, there always schools of tropical fish around and with the right equipment, you might want to bring a camera or get water proof case for your phone!
PEOPLE
The currency is, duh, the US Dollar, so that's good for us. The official language is English and 80% of this territory speaks English so that's even better for us. So for the US, American Samoa is worth living in.
American Samoa earns a
97.6
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