[POI THEIR STAFF OF LIFE.]
What bread is to the American or European poi is to the native Hawaiian. No meal is complete without it, and for the great majority of the natives it forms the principal article of diet.
Poi is made from a tuberous root about the size of a large sweet potato. It is first baked and afterward pounded up with water until a smooth paste is obtained, much resembling a wheat flour paste, except that the color is a pale pink or purple.
This paste is allowed to ferment slightly and is then ready for use. Formerly each family prepared its own poi, the work being done by the men, as in fact were most other cooking operations. Poi factories, in which machinery grinds and mixes the material, have largely supplanted the old method.
Many of the white residents of the islands eat poi to almost the extent of the natives, but the taste is largely acquired and strangers seldom care for it. Poi has a high food value, and since it formed the principal food of the old Hawaiians some persons credit it with the splendid physical development of the race.
Poi was always eaten from wooden bowls or calabashes and was conveyed to the mouth by the fingers, one, two or three being employed according to the consistency of the food, which fact establishes a designation of one, two or three finger poi. White poi eaters now usually employ a fork or spoon in lieu of fingers, although it is still common even in the highest families to give native dinners or "luaus" at which knives and forks are taboo and fingers only used.
There is as much etiquette among the Hawaiians in eating with the fingers as with modern table implements, and the graceful motion by which a portion of poi is twisted up on the fingers and transferred to the mouth would not shock the sensibilities of the most refined. An invitation to a real luau at which poi, baked pig, fish baked in leaves and cocoanut in various forms were the chief features of the menu is an experience which every visitor to Hawaii sincerely covets.