Poulet Fafa

Poulet fafa is Tahitian, chicken braised with taro leaves and coconut milk, and one of the defining dishes of French Polynesia. It takes its name from fafa, the Tahitian word for the taro leaf that goes into it. That leaf is the whole dish. Cooked long enough it collapses into something dark, soft and faintly earthy, closer in character to spinach or callaloo than to anything else, and it is what the coconut milk is there to carry. It is normally served alongside ahima'a, the Polynesian pit oven, the same underground cooking method found across the Pacific under different names, where food is buried over hot stones and left for hours. Poulet fafa is the pot dish that accompanies that, and it can be made entirely on a stovetop. Its close relative is chicken luau in Hawai'i, which is the same idea, chicken, taro leaf, coconut milk, under a different name, reflecting the shared Polynesian food culture across a very large stretch of ocean. **This is not an African dish.** It sits in the Worldwide collection because it is genuinely from Tahiti in French Polynesia, and it is kept on the platform rather than removed because people already visit the page. One thing matters for safety: taro leaves must be cooked thoroughly.