Food
What Nuitai eats, by the people who make it: where each dish is most at home, and whose favorite it is.
The islands39
- Akai lau
- Green onion, a slim plant with long hollow leaves and a white base. It grows quickly from a seed, and its leaves and bulbs flavor stews and soups.
- 'Awa
- A drink of the pounded root steeped in water, bitter and calming, shared at ceremonies and gatherings.
- 'Awapuhi
- Wild ginger, a plant with a pale root that grows in the earth. The root is sharp and sweet, and goes into cooking and into medicine.
- Blood guava
- A red-fleshed fruit that grows best under cloudy skies.
- Breadfruit
- A large green fruit from a tall tree, called 'ulu. Cooked, it is soft and starchy like bread or potato. One tree feeds a family for years.
- Coconut
- The fruit of the coconut palm, called niu. Its sweet water is drunk fresh, and its white flesh is eaten or grated into puddings. Palms line nearly every beach.
- Eel
- A long, slippery fish and the rarest catch of the fishing grounds. It is grilled or smoked.
- Egg
- A bird's egg, boiled, fried or kneaded into noodles.
- Fried egg
- An egg fried in a little salt.
- Haupia
- A firm, sweet coconut pudding set with arrowroot and cut in squares.
- 'Inamona
- A relish of roasted kukui nuts ground with salt. It is stirred into fish and seaweed dishes.
- Kohuapua
- A braise of pork and eggs in coconut, with fish, ginger, shoyu, sweet potato and green onion, cooked slowly until the sauce goes dark and sweet. It is served at wakes and feasts. Every family's is a little different, and each swears theirs is the right one.
- Kukui nut
- A hard oily nut, also called the candlenut. It is roasted and ground, or pressed for its oil.
- Kulolo
- A dense, sweet pudding of grated taro and coconut, baked slowly until it turns dark and chewy. It is served at feasts and given as a gift.
- Laulau
- Pork wrapped in ti leaves and steamed in a bundle until the meat is tender. The leaf is not eaten; it gives the meat its smell.
- Mackerel
- A small, oily, silver fish, plentiful near shore.
- Mahi-mahi
- A bright green and gold fish of the open water, firm and mild.
- Mullet
- A fish that feeds in shallow bays and river mouths.
- Noni
- A lumpy pale fruit with a strong smell, pressed for its juice or baked soft. It is more medicine than meal.
- Noni juice
- Noni pressed with water into a sour drink.
- Palusami
- Taro leaves wrapped around coconut cream and baked in the earth oven.
- Pia
- Arrowroot, a starchy root grated and washed to a fine white flour. It sets coconut milk into a pudding.
- Pineapple
- A spiked fruit with sweet, sharp yellow flesh, grown on low bushes.
- Poi
- Taro root pounded with water into a smooth paste, eaten fresh or left a day or two to turn sour.
- Pork
- Meat from the wild boars of the islands. It has to be cooked through; raw, it makes most people sick.
- Pua'a Ananá
- A pork roast cooked with pieces of pineapple, the sweet and the salt together.
- Roast fowl
- A bird roasted whole over the fire.
- Roast pig
- A whole pig cooked in the earth oven for a feast.
- Salt
- Gathered from the sea. It seasons nearly everything and cures what must keep.
- Seaweed
- Sea plants gathered on the beach and eaten fresh, toasted, or simmered into broth. Pressed in thin sheets, it is nori.
- Shoyu
- A dark salty sauce brewed from soybeans and salt. The bottle that matters most in Kulāiwi came from Māla Iki.
- Smoked eel
- Eel salted and smoked over a slow fire until it keeps.
- Snapper
- A red or pink reef fish with firm white flesh.
- Taro
- A starchy root grown in flooded patches; its leaves are eaten too.
- Ti leaf
- A long glossy leaf used to wrap food for steaming. Nobody eats it.
- Tuna
- A heavy, fast fish of deep water, with dark red flesh.
- 'Uala
- The sweet potato, a sweet, starchy root baked, steamed or mashed. Island voyagers carried it across the sea long ago, and it grows well in poor soil.
- 'Ulu poi
- A paste of mashed breadfruit and water, made like poi from taro. It is a little sweeter and a little thicker.
- Wheat
- A grain grown in patches, kneaded into noodles.
The Bandari10
- Candied crickets
- Crickets fried crisp and coated in sugar, sold by the scoop.
- Coconut rice
- Rice steamed in coconut milk, the everyday staple.
- Coffee
- Brought by the Bandari, grown on Matahari's volcanic slopes and sold across the ring.
- Gula kopi
- Hard coffee candies made from Matahari coffee.
- Kinilaw
- Raw fish cured in vinegar and lime, eaten cold.
- Pandan cake
- A soft green cake flavored with pandan, a screw-pine leaf that tastes sweet and grassy, like vanilla. Offered at shrines.
- Rice
- The grain of the Bandari, boiled or steamed; coconut rice is the everyday staple.
- Satay
- Meat on skewers grilled over coals, with a spicy sauce.
- Soto
- A hot, spiced, yellow soup, often with chicken.
- Sugarcane
- Cane stalks chewed raw for the sweet juice.
The Kame2
- Saimin
- Noodles in a light broth with an egg or a slice of fish cake on top; a Kame dish that spread east over centuries of contact and is popular in Lanuloa.
- Sea grapes (umibudō, umibuduu)
- A seaweed of tiny green beads that pop in the mouth, eaten raw.
From the pot24
- Baked noni
- Noni baked soft. It still smells.
- Baked pia
- Arrowroot baked soft.
- Baked taro
- Taro baked whole.
- Baked 'uala
- Sweet potato baked in its skin.
- Boiled egg
- An egg boiled in its shell.
- Broth
- Nori simmered in water.
- Fish stew
- Fish stewed with vegetables.
- Fruit bowl
- Fruit cut up together.
- Ginger tea
- Wild ginger steeped in water and drunk hot.
- Grilled akai lau
- Green onion charred on the fire.
- Grilled eel
- An eel grilled over the fire.
- Grilled fish
- A fish grilled over the fire.
- Grilled pineapple
- Pineapple grilled until it turns sweet.
- Meat stew
- Meat stewed with vegetables.
- Mixed veggies
- Whatever vegetables were on hand, cooked together.
- Noodles
- Wheat kneaded with egg and cut into noodles.
- Poke
- Raw fish cut in cubes and dressed with salt and nori. Raw fish sickens anyone not used to it, so the Nuitagata eat it freely and others keep to grilled fish.
- Ramen
- Noodles in a hot broth.
- Roast breadfruit
- Breadfruit roasted in the coals.
- Roast coconut
- Coconut flesh roasted brown.
- Roast pork
- Pork roasted over the fire with salt.
- Toasted nori
- Nori toasted crisp.
- Toasted wheat
- Wheat toasted dry in the pot.
- Veggie soup
- Vegetables simmered in water.
Not yet placed8
- Avocado
- A soft green fruit with a large stone and buttery flesh.
- Fish cake
- Fish pounded smooth, shaped and steamed, then sliced thin.
- Fish eggs
- The eggs of a fish, salted and eaten in small amounts.
- Kimchi
- Vegetables salted, spiced and left to ferment until sharp and sour.
- Maui onion
- A sweet onion.
- Ponzu
- A thin, sour sauce of citrus juice and soy sauce.
- Sesame oil
- A nutty oil pressed from toasted sesame seeds.
- Yam
- A heavy, starchy root baked or boiled.