My First Mission

by George Q. Cannon

Near every house there is a circular hole. When “kalo” is to be cooked, a fire is built in this, and a quantity of small volcanic rocks are piled on top of it. As the fire burns out these sink to the bottom, and they are spread over the bottom and around the sides of the pit. The “kalo” roots are then laid in, mats are spread over them, then soil, until they are completely covered, excepting a small hole at the top, into which water is poured. That hole is then stopped, and the cooking commences.

“But how do they cook?” you may ask.

When the water is poured in, the rocks, being hot, speedily convert it into steam, and, as it cannot escape, it cooks the roots.

I have seen large hogs cooked in this way, and meat is sweeter cooked in this fashion than by any other method I know anything about. The native men on the Islands do all the cooking.

When the “kalo” has been in long enough to cook, it is uncovered; the skin is washed off, and it is pounded with a stone pestle, on a large flat slab of wood, until it is like a mass of dough. Then it is put into a calabash, or gourd, and by the next day fermentation has commenced; or, as we would say if it were bread, it has “raised.” Water is then added to it, and it is mixed until it is a little thinner than we usually make mush. There is a little sour taste about it the first day. But it is never eaten at that time by the natives, unless they have no other food. They like it best when it is quite sour. This is what they call “poi,” and there is no other food that they think can equal it.

Their usual method of eating is worthy of notice. A large calabash of “poi” is placed on the mats; around this the family seat themselves.

In families where they make any pretensions to cleanliness, a small calabash of water is passed around, and each one rinses his or her fingers before commencing to eat.

To keep off the flies, a boy or a girl stands waving a kahili, which is made by fastening feathers to a long, slender stick.

In eating, they dip their first two fingers into the calabash, load them with the “poi,” and pass them into their mouths. The sucking of the fingers, the gusto with which they eat, and the incessant conversation mingled with laughter which they keep up, would lead a bystander to conclude that they enjoy their food. And they do. If the “poi” be good, and they have plenty of fish or meat to eat with it, they have great pleasure in eating. They think white men who eat together without conversing very unsocial beings. They have an idea that it contributes to health, and to the enjoyment of the food to have pleasant and lively conversation while eating.

Before leaving Lahaina, I had tasted a teaspoonful of “poi;” but the smell of it and the calabash in which it was contained was so much like that of a book-binder’s old, sour, paste-pot that when I put it to my mouth I gagged at it, and would have vomited had I swallowed it. But in traveling among the people I soon learned that if I did not eat “poi” I would put them to great inconvenience; for they would have to cook separate food for me every meal. This would make me burdensome to them, and might interfere with my success. I, therefore, determined to learn to live on their food, and, that I might do so, I asked the Lord to make it sweet to me. My prayer was heard and answered; the next time I tasted it, I ate a bowlful, and I positively liked it. It was my food, whenever I could get it from that time as long as I remained on the islands.