Hot Bread

One of the things I miss most in Fiji is decent bread; sourdough, baguette, olive and rosemary, multi grain, all the wonderful breads that are so common at home.  Crisp, chewy flavorful.  Wonderful bread, toasted with fresh butter and home made jam for breakfast or grilled with garlic butter with dinner.

In Fiji the Hot Bread Kitchen dominates with outlets in every town and village.  Occasionally there are other bakeries but they all seem to use the same recipe.  There is really just one kind of bread, a soft loaf of white bread that only lasts a day or two before it sprouts  yellow, orange and black mold.  You can get it sliced or unsliced.  There is a whole wheat version that is a darker color but pretty much the same flavor.  Sometimes there is a “french stick” that is really just the same dough in a different shape, long and narrow like a baguette but without the crisp crust. .  Sometimes there is multigrain, at triple the price.  Basically the same bread rolled in a variety of seeds so that the “multi grain” looks good on the outside while the inside is the same soft dough.  There is also a cheese bread.  Again the same dough, flattened and sprinkled with cheese.
To make a sandwich, the locals cut an entire life lengthwise and fill it with canned tuna flakes.  Every once in a while I stumble on some real bread in one of the markets or hotels catering to the super yacht crowd and we eat bread 3 times a day until it is gone.

There is definitely a business opportunity for a good European baker here.  Meanwhile I am trying to master sourdough bread making.  Definitely a challenge with no oven and no refrigerator.