Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [39]
The forerunner is the Big Island’s Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory (Click here), a mom-and-pop-run outfit that’s been producing 100% Kona chocolate since 2000. Making chocolate is no cheap or overnight venture, and it’s commendable that they do all of their own processing, packaging and marketing, while growing cacao on their six-acre farm and buying the rest from 60 farmers on the island.
Since 2005, a second company, O′ahu’s Waialua Estate (on the Dole Plantation, Click here), started growing cacao, which it now ships to San Francisco’s Guittard Chocolate Company for roasting, grinding and final processing. Both companies sell their chocolate online.
On Kaua′i, cacao remains in the simmering stage (it takes thousands of mature plants to produce enough cacao for steady commercial production), but Steelgrass Farm (Click here) already offers a fascinating farm tour that traces how cacao beans transform into chocolate bars.
Note: there are many fine chocolate makers (using imported chocolate) across the Islands. But if you’re curious about 100% Hawaii-grown chocolate, your choices dwindle to a handful.
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Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) Hawaiian dish is poi, steamed and mashed wetland taro, which was sacred to Hawaiians. Locals savor the bland-to-mildly-tart flavor as a starchy palate cleanser, but its slightly sticky and pasty consistency can be off-putting to nonlocals. Taro is highly nutritious, low in calories, easily digestible and versatile to prepare. Also try taro chips (made with dryland/upland ‘Chinese’ taro) at local grocers.
Locals typically eat poi as a counterpoint to strongly flavored fish dishes such as lomilomi salmon (minced salted salmon tossed with diced tomato and green onion) and poke (see opposite). In case you’re wondering, salmon is an import, first introduced to Hawaiians by whaling ships.
No Hawaiian feast is complete without kalua pig, which is traditionally roasted whole underground in an imu, a sealed pit of red-hot stones. Cooked this way, the pork is smoky, salty and succulent. Nowadays kalua pork is typically oven-roasted and seasoned with salt and liquid smoke. At commercial luau, a pig placed in an imu is only for show (and it couldn’t feed 300-plus guests anyway).
A popular restaurant dish is laulau, a bundle of pork or chicken and salted butterfish, wrapped in taro leaves and steamed in ti leaves. When cooked, the melt-in-your-mouth taro leaves blend perfectly with the savory meats.
Another food hardly seen on menus is raw ′opihi, which you might see locals picking off shoreline rocks.
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DRINKS
Fruit trees thrive in Hawaii, so you’d expect to find fresh juices everywhere. Alas, most supermarket cartons contain imported purées or sugary ‘juice drinks.’ Avoid canned juices altogether. Find real, freshly squeezed or blended juices at fruit stands, health food stores, farmers markets and specialty bars. Don’t assume that the fruit is local. Also, bear in mind that the ancients never tasted that succulent mango or tangy pineapple. One juice-bar standout is Lanikai Juice (O′ahu, Click here).
Hawaii’s original intoxicants were fruit juices, ′awa (kava), a mild sedative, and noni (Indian mulberry), which some consider a cure-all. Both fruits are pungent, if not repulsive, in smell and taste, so they are typically mixed with other juices.
Coffee
World-renowned Kona coffee typically costs $20 to $40 per pound, depending on the grade. Aficionados rave about its mellow flavor that has no bitter aftertaste. The upland slopes of Mauna Loa and Hualalai in the Big Island’s Kona district offer the ideal climate (sunny mornings and rainy afternoons) for coffee cultivation. While Kona coffee has the most cachet, recent crops from Ka′u (the southernmost district on Hawai′i) have won accolades and Ka′anapali Estate’s MauiGrown Coffee (Click here) has impressed many aficionados.
Café culture has taken root, with baristas brewing