Hawaiian food

Hawaiian food set, clockwise from top left corner:  poi, haupia, chicken long rice, lau lau, kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon

Mainstays of Hawaiian food are:  poi, lomilomi salmon, kalua pork (or kalua pig), lau lau, poke, and the desserts haupia and kulolo.

poi with some lomi lomi salmon in the middle

Poi, made from the wetland taro (although there are dry forms of it too), used to be the main source of starch on the islands.  The taro is mashed (traditionally by a poi pounder) and mixed with water, the amount being according to one's preference of texture.  I hated poi as a kid but came to love it sometime in my 20s.  It goes well with a lot of the other Hawaiian dishes.  Since kalua pork and lau lau can be so oily, poi is provides a nice contrast.  If the taste of poi alone is too plain or somehow missing something, I've heard of people adding sugar, in other cases milk; I tried these as a child but wouldn't do it now.  If I add anything now, I put a couple spoonfuls of lomi salmon.

The taste of poi, in my view, has been evolving somewhat.  The classic taste is the Taro brand poi in a bag.  They still sell it in supermarkets; if you buy it a day old it'll be cheaper and probably have a bit of a sourness to it.  Nothing to worry about, this sourness--it isn't like drinking bad milk.  I'd take fresh poi over day-old poi most days, but there are times when I appreciate the sourness as being not better or worse, just different. 

Poi's pretty healthy, by the way, as taro has more dietary fiber and is lower on the Glycemic Index than the potato.  Taro also contains potassium, as well as Vitamins A, B, C, and E.

Lomilomi salmon (lomi salmon for short) is a mix of salted salmon, diced tomatoes, onions and green onions, and sea salt.  As I mentioned, people sometimes put into their poi, but eating it by itself, with a beer, is pretty good too.  I haven't  been able to find proper lomi salmon in Tokyo, so I started making it at home.  It isn't hard to do but takes a bit of time.  (Hawaiian  theme restaurants in Tokyo do serve it but they alter it to suit Japanese tastes.  The couple of times I had it here, the salmon was marinated and cut to look kind of like traditional sashimi.  Hardly any onions or green onions.  It didn't taste bad but it wasn't lomi salmon.)

Kalua pork is made tender by burying the pig's meat underground with hot stones, letting it cook under the weight of the earth for hours, and then digging it back up.  At least that's how it was, but I don't think it's done that way most of the time nowadays.  But anyway, it's tenderness is its distinction, and its moisture.  Lau lau is kalua pig wrapped in cooked taro leaves (also nutritious).  There will be a huge chunk of fat at the center of the lau lau.  You don't have to eat it, of course, and since it's kept intact as one piece you can easily cut it out and put it aside.  The fat has to be there during the cooking process in order to distribute moisture throughout the lau lau. 

 There's also lau lau made with chicken and butterfish instead of pork.  No vegetarian lau lau, though, so far as I know.

If you have the chance to taste just one Hawaiian dish, I would say make it poke.  (That is, if you're comfortable with raw fish.)  Sushi people should like it quite a lot.  Raw fish cut into cubes, splashed with sesame oil, sometimes shoyu, and garnished with any variety of ingredients , among them onions, green onions, chili pepper, and limu (seaweed).  They sell poke mix at supermarkets and places like Longs.  Obviously, you would need to buy the fish separately, since they can't include it in the mix. 

Poke has gotten expensive over the past year.  Whereas it used to be about $6 a pound, on sale, the price has more than doubled.  Good poke can cost $18/llb. now.  As wish sashimi, the best poke has few or no grissels. 

Haupia is a coconut-flavored dessert that comes out a little firmer than pudding.  This past spring, when I was back home watching KHON news, the newscasters took a moment to ponder what might be a good official pie for Hawai'i.  One of them thought haupia would be the choice to make.  Me, I can't decide which sounds better, a haupia or Macadamia nut chocolate pie.