Lu'au

A modern-day cultural extravaganza rooted in Hawaiian tradition.

- Lois Leinani Whitney

While a modern lu -‘au usually seats diners around tables with chairs, traditional Hawaiian feasts were truly a sit-down affair as guests sat on the floor on woven lauhala mats. Instead of a buffet, food was served family-style with everyone dipping into carved wooden calabash bowls of poi, fish, sweet potatoes and other staple foods. While men and women were once forbidden to eat together, the abolition of the kapu (laws of restriction) by Kamehameha II in 1891 brought about ‘ai noa (free eating).

Today, Hawai‘i residents often throw a lu-‘au for such important rites of passage as a baby’s 1st birthday, graduations, wedding receptions and notable anniversaries. Dishes you will likely see at a lu-‘au include poi, (steamed taro paste), lau lau (meat and fish steamed in taro leaves), ka-lua pork (a whole pig roasted in an imu, or stone-lined underground oven) and haupia, a coconut milk-based gelatin dessert.

A local menu often includes other specialty items such as raw ‘opihi (limpets) and black crab hand-picked off the rocks, octopus cooked with taro leaves and coconut milk, as well as fresh