Oh Poi!
If you’ve read or heard anything about the culinary customs of old Hawai’i, you’ve no doubt heard about poi.
What it is:
Poi is a starch made from taro root, breadfruit, or sweet potato that has been cooked, pounded into a paste, and fermented. It’s usually eaten with the fingers, and should accompany some other serving, such as meat.
Poi was used in the old days as a way to make more palatable meats cured and preserved with salt in the absence of refrigeration. Today it’s used as a thickener for Hawaiian foods, such as soups, stews, and sauces.
The food poi is sometimes confused with the fire-juggling art of the same name. If your poi is on fire, don’t eat it.
Where it is:
The only place I’ve seen it sold with any kind of frequency is at the Hasagawa General Store in Hana. It’s also served at luaus, mostly as an obligatory part of any Hawaiian meal. The truth is you probably won’t want it and don’t need it at a luau, much less make it yourself, so my suggestion is to try it if it’s offered to you as an act of good etiquette, and then move on to the tasty stuff. Paste is paste, which you probably ate plenty of back in Kindergarten.
Other poi-related foods and dishes that you might actually like include:
- Deep fried taro puffs
- Poi cocktail (milk with poi)
- Taro chips
Have you recently tried poi? Write in or comment with your experience.
Photo by Flickr–Creative Commons, by Ebonabri
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[...] Hawai’i is a lot like a little piece of Americana wrapped in ti leaves and served with poi. The atmosphere is unlike what most of us travelers experience at home, but it seems not so far [...]