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MACIEJ JĘDRUSIK

the possibilities created by the culinary tourism comparing to the other world’s regions, also the ones in the intertropical zonę. It is a significant cultural potential able to revive the tourism in the futurę.

The Pacific Islands, until the 19“* century almost completely isolated - with some exceptions like Guam in Micronesia - ffom the world, did not offer to their inhabitants a chance for a diversified and refined cuisine. The traditional vegetable food were the tubers complemented with fruits (Kubary, 1997). The coconut palm played an important role in cooking as a source both of wood for the fireplace and of oil, copra, water, and coconut milk the using of which the natives enjoyed. The animal protein came mostly from fish and seafood. The animal protein deficiency was complemented by eating dogs and humans. This traditional menu was later completed with pork and poultry. Besides that in places like New Caledonia bats, rats, and from the “poultry-like”: pigeons and parrots were eaten.

Along with the Europeans arrival, the Pacific Islands were enriched with citruses, papayas, guavas, passion fruits, melons, pineapples (which plantations on the Hawaii are the largest in the world) and various vegetables: tomatoes, capsicum fruits, garlic, eggplants and cabbages. Some of the imported plants took hołd, and some despite the initial success disappeared from various reasons. The Europeans also intensified the cultivation of some local species like bananas, sugarcane and the coconut palm which became the source of copra - an important export product, however the Europeans’ most substantial contribution appears to be the propagation of the manioc (Manihot utilissima) cultivation which tumed out to be easier to storę than the local tubers and easier to cultivate, although less nutritious and impoverishing the soil. Trials to acclimatize potatoes failed in principle. Grains, that were not known to the natives before the European colonization, are now successfully cultivated on the larger islands (e.g. rice on Viti Levu; wheat, sorghum and corn on the west of New Caledonia) and on the smaller: in the home gardens. Finally, that were just the Europeans who brought cattle to the Pacific Islands which were conductive to the breed, especially New Caledonia (Doumenge, 1989).

Comparing to the pre-colonial period, at the end of the 20^ century there are significant changes in the choice of ingredients used in the local cuisine. Leaving aside their reasons, although the labour cost and the imitation of the world’s tendencies might be mentioned here, it is worth to list the most important changes: the rice outdistanced the tubers and became the basie food; the traditional seasoning (like banana and taro leaves, and others) were