Kathy refers to the French bread. We heard a story, perhaps true, that during the Civil War in the States, the blockade meant that Europeans couldn't get rice from the South. Some enterprising fellow started growing rice on Tahiti. But the Polynesians wouldn't work in the paddys. So the fellow imported a whack of Chinese to work the fields.

The fellow made a heap of money. But then the Civil War ended and the Tahitian rice business collapsed.

The Chinese, now unemployed, set up a bunch of local businesses. One was baking French bread. According to the story, the bread that Kathy so admires was almost certainly baked by the Chinese bakers.

Warning: the Polynesians take great delight in telling tall tales to the tourists. I think they may well have a prize given to the most outrageous whopper that they got people to believe. This tale may be a mini-whopper.

-- David