Waipao

For my second field trip I went to the poi pounding class in Waipao.  I wish I had brought a camera, or snapped some photos with my phone as it is a very beautiful area.  The location is in a warehouse like structure which is really in a small vale, or a groove cut through the valley floor by a stream that runs through the property.  I do have a picture of the valley from when I did a hike up Haiku stairs, and I edited in a red circle in the area that the vale is in.

I had the chance to buy cooked kalo corms for $4 a pound and take the class for free.  We went to the back of the building and cleaned the corms by scraping off the skins and any soft or rotten parts using a metal spoon.  The scraped material was saved and could be used in other types of cooking (such as my friends favorite: turkey taro burgers).  The cleaned corm was then taken inside where we grabbed a board and a poi pounder.  The pounding then involved several steps in which the corm was first mashed by rubbing the poi pounding against the kalo forwards and backwards.  I couldn't remember all the stages, but it ended with the stage in which water is slowly added by wetting the hand and rubbing the base of the pounder, and mashing the kalo in a rocking motion.  Before too much water is added the kalo is called pa'i 'ai, which is personally my favorite way to eat kalo.  If more water is added until the consistency is changed to become almost paste like, it is then called poi.

Overall the experience was excellent.  I had taken the class once before last semester and forgotten much of the process (and it seems I have again), but that's okay because I realize it is a learning process.  It is also a process which provides a great amount of satisfaction because once you engage in both the cooking and the preparing of your own food, it warrants a new meaning.  With my limited experience growing vegetables in my yard, I know that once this process is extended to planting, growing, harvesting, cooking, preparing, AND eating your own food, the eating part takes on a whole new meaning.