The island of Tahiti

The municipal market of Papeete

The traditional Tahitian cuisine
Tahitian meals are usually eaten as a family. The dishes are arranged on the table as a buffet. During Sundays and holidays, preparing a feast, with all the family and neighborhood friends. This is often an opportunity to make a Polynesian oven is the most traditional of all Tahitian cuisine. This oven is a large hole dug in the sand of the beach where we laid stones and branches is ignited. The hot stones and then covered with large banana leaves, which are deposited on the food to cook, usually fish and vegetables. It covers everything from banana leaves, fabric and then sand. The firing lasted for hours. The opening of the furnace is very difficult not to let the sand in the dish. It's almost ceremonial and marks the opening festivities.

Fish and coconuts are the two main ingredients of traditional cuisine. The traditional dish is raw fish in coconut milk. Just catch a fish and pick some limes and a few coconuts. Raw fish is actually cooked by the acidity of the lemon. We add some fruits and vegetables, washed down with coconut milk. The Tahitians eat lots of fruits such as mango, coconut and bananas. Almost all dishes Tahitians are based on products from the sea are fish they eat often but also grilled shellfish.

The culture of Tahiti
There are very few Tahitians now without tattoos. It is a tradition for them. Before the arrival of Europeans, Polynesians do not transcribed their oral language. The tattoo then became a way to express the personality and identity of men. Thus hierarchy and genealogy was etched into the skin of the Tahitians. No long after the arrival of missionaries and then forgotten, the Polynesian tattoo is back on center stage during the 80s. Today, tattoos beginnings have given way to more popular reasons making this Polynesian art a way to express her creative spirit, where once it was identity

Polynesian dance is an ancient tradition.