HAWAIIAN POI DEALER.
A little way beyond the court-house our friends met a man carrying two covered baskets slung at the ends of a short pole which rested on his shoulder. Frank turned to the guide and asked what the man was carrying.
"He's a poi peddler," was the reply, "and I wonder you have not met one before, as there are many of them. He peddles poi, and the people buy it to eat."
He then explained that poi is the national dish of the islands, and is made from the taro-root, which is the Sandwich Island form of the potato. He pointed out a taro-garden, and said that there were many such gardens in and around Honolulu, as the natives did not consider a home complete without one.
The taro-root is baked in an underground oven, and then mashed very fine, so that it would be like flour if the moisture were expelled. After it has been thoroughly mashed it is mixed with water, and in this condition is ready for eating. It has an agreeable taste when fresh, and most foreigners like it upon the first trial. For native use it is allowed to ferment; when fermented it suggests sour paste to the uneducated palate, and is nauseating to the novice. Natives greatly prefer it in this form, and a good many foreigners cultivate their taste until they too would rather have their poi sour than fresh.
Soon after the islands were settled by foreigners an ingenious Yankee saw a chance for making money by importing machinery for making poi, in place of the old form of hand-crushing. Now there are factories in various parts of the island where poi is made in large quantities, chiefly for the use of planters and other large consumers. It forms quite an article of export to other islands where Polynesian labor is employed, and especially to the guano islands, where nothing can be cultivated. A former king of Hawaii established a poi factory at Honolulu, and by so doing became very unpopular with his subjects, just as has been the case with other kings who have introduced labor-saving machinery into their dominions.