Ancient Customs: Hawaii VS. The Mainland
Posted by Kirill Storch on 11/14/2010
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We spend a lot of time talking about Thanksgiving traditions around the holidays. And it’s true, what better time of year to bake the bird and eat roasted chestnuts by the open fire? But even as Thanksgiving is the most American holiday, it allows for a different definition of what traditional means...based on where you come from. Hawaii has a completely different way of preparing turkey and chestnuts. First, they pile up lava rocks from streams and quarries, then they gather stumps and branches from Banana trees to set up a giant fire pit. Once the fire gets going, they fill the pit with delicious food, seal it with rock, and let the stones heat it all night! We think this would be a marvelous way to cook traditional Thanksgiving meals, such as basted turkey and... sweet chestnuts! The labor it takes to set up this vast pit, lining it with heavy stones, and tending to the fire...is more than the average family will be able to muster. But if you ever get the chance, I recommend you travel to the Aloha Island and see first-hand how Thanksgiving may be reinterpreted in the Pacific. Community organizations gather dozens of volunteers who bring turkeys from all over the island, seasoned in a multitude of ways- with toasted Japanese rice, peas, and filled with herbs and Chinese sausage. They are foil-wrapped (to keep the juices in) and placed into the heated rocks all night until the meat crumbles. This ancient form of cooking is known as imu. Named after the great fire-pit stone oven, which is also called an imu. The turkeys, after being cooked, get driven to less fortunate families across the island...and given to neighbors. And unlike our mainland Turkey, it’s cooked so finely that it usually ends up shredded, rather than in large, solid pieces. Hawaiian Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday, can’t even be authentically recreated on the mainland. Although we are tempted to try roasting our chestnuts in the Hawaiian style this year, it requires an underground oven with scented, kiawe and banana wood- as well as molten lava rock. A different type of stone just wouldn’t cook the nuts in the same way. There was a time when this traditional oven could be found in almost every Hawaiian household, but now it is usually seen around the holidays and on special occasions such as births and weddings. Most Hawaiians, like you may have expected, prefer an oven or microwave...and the imu is becoming as outdated as a luau pig roast   But even so, every year, hundreds of community groups in Hawaii fire up their imus to cook thousands of turkeys. They then redistribute them to the poor. And in our opinion, that's an amazing way to keep tradition alive.       
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