WRITTEN BY REBECCA ARÉCHIGA 

MAY DAY IS LEI DAY IN HAWAI’I – THE FRAGRANT SMELL OF TRADITION 

DORA IS STRINGING YELLOW ‘ILIMA with a long lei needle, one she says she was born with in her hand. She sits behind a fold-up table at a lei stand beneath a sign bearing her name outside the Honolulu Airport. Along a strand of similarly christened lei stands identical to Dora’s is Sophia’s, Arthur’s, Martha’s, Irene’s and about a dozen more, all with their full rainbow of aromatic goods on display.

The original Dora is her grandmother, ninety-six years old and still making lei. She began the business at age fourteen, selling from Aloha Tower and later moving to Keehi Lagoon Park. Then came another Dora, Dora’s daughter, or Dora’s mother, depending on which you’re talking about. That Dora had fourteen children and supported them all with lei making. One of those children is coincidentally the Dora that currently runs the lei stand, who herself has been stringing lei for sixty years, and who has taught all of her children, and now grandchildren, how to make lei. 

The history of lei making is the history of humankind. Neck chains of shell and bone have been discovered in the most ancient of human graves, suggesting that the primitive man may too have felt compelled to adorn himself with attractive elements of the natural world. If this is true, lei traditions have been around for 17,000 years.

It is perhaps because the people of Hawaii have for so long perpetuated the practice of making, wearing, and giving lei and with such ardent spirit that it has become the epicenter of modern lei culture. Lei can be used for any occasion that involves flowers; weddings, graduations, funerals, a gift for the hostess or for a date to the prom. It’s entirely acceptable to buy a lei for oneself or to wear one for no occasion at all. Men wear lei as casually as women, always draped over the shoulders, never hanging directly down from the neck. One should not refuse a lei, nor present a closed lei to a pregnant woman due to the taboo that it is bad luck for the unborn child. 

Lei can be made out of much more than flowers. The Hawaiians of old would make a lei out of anything; cloth, shells, boar’s husk, nuts, seeds or feathers, also fresh materials like berries, fruit, or vegetables. The grandest, most chiefly lei was made of human hair and ivory. 

In caring for a lei, most will do well in the coolness of a refrigerator or wrapped in damp newspaper or paper towel and placed where it is shaded and breezy. To properly dispose of a lei, simply return it to nature, being mindful to remove the natural material from the string; not all lei stringing is decomposable.

While in old Hawai‘i, materials were gathered entirely from the immediate environment, and in more recent times, flowers were grown in backyard gardens and harvested to string and sell, the business of lei making is changing. Purple orchids from Thailand are imported to Hawai‘i en masse; they’re cheap and wilt slower, a huge bonus when working with such delicate, perishable goods for such little profit to begin with. Also, new generations are finding that it’s easier and better paying work to find a job doing almost anything other than growing and selling backyard flowers to lei makers. 

“I like making double carnation, no one makes that anymore,” says Dora, “Vanda leis should be treasured now. Gardenia are so hard to find, most people now don’t even know how to string them.” 

Dora gets most of her flowers from vendors that come to the lei stands at the airport once a day, but there are still people like “Mama” who approaches her with plastic bags strung along both her arms. She is probably closer to the age of Dora’s grandmother than to the age of Dora herself and she catches the bus from Wahiawa everyday, transferring two times, to sell bags of flowers grown in her backyard and in the backyards of her neighbors to the lei makers of the airport. Dora greets her warmly, buys one bag for $15, and “Mama” moves down the line of stands. 

Dora is optimistic: “I don’t think there will ever be a time when all the flowers will come from elsewhere, people plant their own to keep costs down,” she says, “I take my little grandkids and gather when I can, it’s part of the culture.” When asked where she goes to pick her flowers, Dora smiles and points ambiguously, “The mountains,” she says. 

And yet, there is now constantly a great shortage of many of the flowers traditionally seen on Hawaiian lei. Flower availability depends on the season and who’s growing what locally. The phone inside the stand rings and Dora answers it, asks, “How much do you need?” then laughs hard and says with sincerity, “Good luck!”

She returns to her seat, returns to her lei stringing, she’s still smiling, “They wanted nine double chains of ginger today. It takes four bunches to make one double chain, that’s thirty-six bunches! I can’t even get one.” 

Though I am not an invited guest, and I’ve offered her nothing, before I go, Dora pulls a gardenia lei from inside the stand and ties off the ‘ilima lei she’s been stringing all this time and says, “Here, I have something to share with you,” and gives me both. And in that one gesture, she explains to me the enduring lei culture of Hawaii. [ eHI ]

Each of the eight main Hawaiian Islands is associated with a different lei based on the prevalence of materials naturally found there. The colors of these distinct lei have also become symbols for the islands, used in such ways as the gowns of the island princesses on Lei Day. 

• Hawai’i Island, Lei Lehua, Red: The flower of the endemic tree, ‘ōhi‘a lehua, usually the first to grow on new lava flows. The tree is traditionally sacred to Pele, the volcano goddess, and lei made with the lehua flower resemble a strand of scarlet feathers. 
• Maui, Lokelani, Pink: Though not native to the Hawaiian Islands, the flower of the Maui lei is a pink Damask rose. Introduced in the early 1800’s and immediately loved by the Hawaiian people, it was adopted as lokelani, or “rose of heaven”.
• O‘ahu, Ilima, Orange-Yellow: A relative of the hibiscus but far more seldom seen, the ilima used to be called the royal lei because its use was restricted to high chiefs. The flowers are strung flatly across and hundreds are needed for a single lei.
• Kaua‘i, Mokihana, Purple: This lei is made of the fruit of the mokihana, which grows only on Kaua’i. The berries are tiny and green, strung like beads on a thread, with a subtle fragrance of anise which becomes stronger as they dry.
• Molokai, Pua Kukui, Silver-Green: Tiny clusters of white flowers and silvery green leaves of the native kukui tree are braided or bound together to make the lei of Molokai. Nuts of the kukui tree can also be found strung into a lei.
• Ni‘ihau, Pupu, White: Tiny white and sometimes red sea shells, grown by an creature resembling a small snail which lives on the rocky shoreline of Ni’ihau make up this lei. Usually multiple long strands are worn together, sometimes with strings of alternating colors.
• Lāna‘i, Kauna‘oa, Orange: Perhaps the most unusual of the islands’ lei is made of the kinked, threadlike vines of the Hawaiian doddler. The kaunaoa is in fact a parasite which spreads a net over the tops of its shrubby host plants and can be easily gathered and twisted loosely together to form a lei.
• Kaho‘olawe, Hinahina, Silvery-grey: The now uninhabited island was once represented by the silvery grey leaves and tiny white and yellow flowers of the beach heliotrope, hina-hina. Since it is very difficult to obtain, its silvery grey color is now most often rendered with spanish moss.

WRITTEN BY MELISSA CHANG 

AN AUTHENTIC TAKE ON HAWAII THROUGH IMMIGRATED CULTURE 

ASK ANYONE WHO GREW UP in Hawaii what they love about crack seed, and the salivary glands at the back of their jawlines will react with a quick, strong tingling as they remember their favorite, small-kid-time treat. 

Rock salt plum! Lemon peel! Honey ginger! And across the board, everyone will have an opinion about the tart and super salty li hing mui. The funny thing is, very few people know what the specific “crack seed” is anymore. 

Here’s a quick history lesson on this favorite local treat: Li hing mui (旅行梅) means “traveling plum,” which was the perfect thing to take on a long trip across the Pacific Ocean. These preserved fruits — particularly li hing mui — were brought to Hawaii in the mid-1800s by immigrant workers from Zhongshan, China. 

Although li hing mui is dried to the point that each one resembles a rock, most of the other preserved fruits are moist or soft. In one preparation, the seed of the fruit is cracked open to enhance the sweet and salty flavors of the syrup it is soaked in. This is the original version of “crack seed,” which is rarely, if ever, sold anymore — probably because it could potentially injure your mouth if you don’t eat it carefully. 

When it was widely available, crack seed was weighed and served in brown paper bags. Snackers would eat the meat of the dried fruit, then suck on the seeds and seed fragments, then turn the paper bags inside out to enjoy the sticky flavored syrup left behind. (The emergence of plastic bags was a much cleaner alternative.) 

Although Chinese candy stores sold every kind of Asian preserved fruit imaginable, including crack seed, the term “crack seed” came to be the general term for anything sold in there. These treasured local snacks have evolved over the years, but Hawaii’s craving for that flavor profile has not. In fact, it’s amazing to see what big business these humble treats have become. 

Through high school and college, I worked at what was then one of the oldest crack seed stores (and an original Ala Moana Center tenant), Crack Seed Center. If you were around in the 1980s, you might have seen me amidst the 50 or so glass jars filled with every variety of the preserved, dried fruits: about a dozen different kinds of wet and dry li hing mui, a dozen gingers, three kinds of rock salt plum, wet and dry lemon peel, several versions of shredded mango and mango seed, even a few different presentations of olives. We even had rare, special items like baby seed, apple seed, cherry seed, kam cho mui (aficionados will recognize it as the one that looks like horse poop) and, yes, even traditional crack seed. 

The dry seeds tend to be much saltier than all the rest, cured in licorice and a blend of salt, sugar and other unknown spices to create unique sensations of sweet, sweet-sour, or extra salty. 

The wet seeds tend to be sweeter, with a more jammy profile. True old school seed shops will add simple syrup to kick up the sugar flavor, or salt — preferably rock salt — to offer a more salty-sweet plum with crunch. 

If you’re new to crack seed, I usually recommend you start with the milder wet ones and work your way up to the ones with more concentrated flavors. If you start with li hing mui, you may feel like you’re eating pure salt. 

Due to the extreme salty, sour, or sweet sensations, many people use crack seeds in home remedies when sick. The most common one is li hing mui or lemon peel for sore threats, as the salt helps to soothe the scratchiness. Many of my customers swore by eating red cured peaches with brandy when dealing with a cold, but I usually cut up a preserved lemon and throw it into hot tea. 

The seeds are typically shipped from Asia in 25-pound bags. Back then, the li hing mui bags would always have a lot of the salt, sugar and spices at the bottom. My coworkers and I used to save the powder to add custom touches to our rock salt plums, apricots and mangoes, as well as for kakimochi upon request. 

It was probably this unique touch that made the Crack Seed Center seeds much more delicious. Actor Robert Conrad, when in Hawaii filming “Jake and the Fat Man,” would often send his assistant to buy five pounds of rock salt plum #85 at a time — his favorite munchies between takes. 

We also experimented with li hing powder on our own snacks, as an exclusive perk for people who worked in the store. Oddly enough, we never thought to market the intensely salty powder as a separate ingredient.

You can imagine our surprise — and regret — many years later, when some genius figured out how to sell that precious powder, even to the point of grinding li hing mui seeds to make more of it. Today, you can find the powder sold in bags at stores, used as an enhancer for almost everything, including: salad dressing, margaritas, fruit sprinkles, cookies, barbecue ribs, gummy candies and shave ice. Mixed with simple syrup, it makes an amazing and addicting addition to the popular Icee drinks. 

The combination of old school snacks and contemporary snacks continues with a recently booming trend in mincing dried lemon peel and sprinkling it on gummy candies. Lemon peel is also salty, but has a milder flavor than li hing mui, plus the citrus essence. 

Lemon peel on candy has become such a huge trend that even the wholesalers can’t keep up with the demand. Seed City in Pearlridge is often sold out of lemon peel. Sing Cheong Yuan in Chinatown, which also owns the Crack Seed Store in Kaimuki, sells bags of lemon peel pre-minced so you can sprinkle it on your favorite confection to your liking. 

My niece, Morgen, loves to eat her li hing mui in a different way now: Big Island Candies in Hilo takes the seeds and dips them halfway in chocolate, which helps to temper the initial extreme saltiness and balance the flavor as you chew the meat of the fruit. 

One of my new obsessions is getting a bag of kakimochi pre-mixed with li hing powder from Aloha Gourmet Products (sold in stores like Longs, as well as online), crushing it coarsely, and sprinkling it on poke — any kind of poke. It sounds odd, but it works. The subtle crunch of kakimochi adds texture to the fish, as well as an infusion of comforting flavors from my childhood. 

Prepackaged seeds can be found at grocery and drugstores all throughout Hawaii. For a true crack seed store experience though, go to a store that scoops your order straight out of the jar. [ eHI ]

THE PRESENT
WRITTEN BY LINDSEY KESEL

THE DAYS OF PROLIFIC LO‘I KALO in Hawai‘i are a distant memory, dwindling from 35,000 acres grown across the Hawaiian Islands at the crop’s peak to the less than 350 acres currently in production. Hawai‘i Census data shows a loss of half during the seven-year stretch from 2000 to 2017, down from 7 million pounds to just over 3.5 million pounds. Since Hawai‘i eats nearly double the amount it produces, kalo imports from Fiji and other Pacific locales are needed to help fill the gap.

These shrinking numbers don’t faze the fiercely loyal community of kalo growers, activists, advocates, and fans. Despite setbacks, a kalo comeback is being made manifest in countless different ways, thanks to an army of supporters working to reinstate the plant in its rightful place as Hawai‘i’s most vital staple.

POUNDING PROBLEMS

In 2009, the Hawai‘i Department of Health shut down restaurants and independent poi and pa‘i ‘ai makers claiming that traditional preparation methods violated local food and safety laws. The mandates that pa‘i ‘ai and poi be pounded in a commercial kitchen—and that the porous pounding implements be sterilized—starkly infringed on Hawaiian tradition. From a practitioner’s perspective, the papa ku‘i ‘ai (wooden board) and pohaku ku‘i ‘ai (stone pestle) carry the mana (spiritual power) of those who use it, and sterilization is akin to sacrilege.

After tireless rallying and education by founders and allies of the permeative Legalize Pa‘i ‘Ai movement, on May 5, 2011, SB 101 was unanimously passed by the Hawai‘i Senate and House of Representatives. The Pa‘i ‘Ai Bill (aka, Poi Bill) succeeded in providing pa’i ‘ai and poi with their own set of conditions—such as permitting sun bleaching of implements as an alternative to chemical sterilization—free from the narrow restrictions of general health and safety laws.

Not only did SB 101 mean more kalo could be shared and sold among neighbors and local communities, the movement surrounding the bill invigorated interest in learning to prepare poi and pa‘i ‘ai. In Hawaiian immersion hubs like Kamehameha Schools and cultural preservation centers like Kaua‘i Historical Society, opportunities abound for people of all ages wanting to learn how to pound kalo root—and fashion kalo pounding tools—the way Hawaiian ancestors once did.

COOL KALO

Hawai‘i’s cherished root vegetable is enjoying a mainstream renaissance thanks in large part to the Legalize Pa‘i ‘Ai movement. Once reserved for dinner tables, potlucks, and backyard pa‘inas (parties), kalo as an ingredient or stand-alone dish can now be seen everywhere from five-star hotel banquets to late-night club menus. Poi, pa‘i ‘ai, kūlolo (kalo pudding) and lū‘au (cooked kalo leaves) are showing up in donut shops, food trucks, and farm-to-table restaurants— not simply for their unique flavor and versatility, but also because chefs and business owners are responding to the growing demand for a return to Hawaiian roots.

While kalo’s culinary coolness is doing a lot to raise awareness at present, the road from peripheral plant to central staple is still long and winding. Unlike the low-cost, readily available staple of rice, at up to $10 per pound the high cost of store-bought poi and kalo’s more complex cooking requirements remain barriers to regular table integration. For farmers, crop threats including climate change, shrinking farmland as a result of commercial and residential development, and short-term leases make for uncertain kalo-growing futures.

“AS AN ANCESTOR OF THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE, KALO IS REGARDED AS THE PINNACLE LIFE SOURCE WITH THE ABILITY TO HEAL THE BODY”

KALO KEEPERS

Vast stewardship from multifarious kalo advocacy groups throughout the Hawaiian Islands is helping fuel the mission to restore kalo as a universal food source. Recent initiatives on Maui are battling for streamflow restoration at Nā Wai ‘Ehā—once the largest contiguously cultivated loʻi kalo growing region in Hawaiʻi, diverted after the fall of commercial sugar cane—in hopes of irrigating starter wetland taro farms. Nonprofits like Kumuola Hawaii in Mānoa, O‘ahu offer cultural experiences where visitors can tend to plants and join workshops that make absorbing the rich history behind kalo interactive and fun.

Onipaʻa Nā Hui Kalo, a statewide organization of kalo farmers, has been uniting community volunteers around the restoration of lo‘i kalo for more than two decades, with thriving projects on every island except Kāho‘olawe. In Maui’s Haleakalā National Park, Kipahulu `Ohana spearheads ongoing restoration of ancient wetland lo`i. At University of Hawaii at Mānoa (UH), the students of Hawai‘inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge run Ka Papa Lo‘i ‘o Kānewai, a one-acre kalo farm that hosts 25,000 volunteers annually for educational outreach. Ho‘okua‘āina on O‘ahu’s east side teaches at-risk youth life skills and delivers Hawaiian cultural values-based coaching through kalo cultivation.

STRAIN SECURITY

Though Hawaiian kalo varieties once numbered in the several hundred, with distinct strains featuring a full spectrum of flavor, textures, and colors, 90 percent of commercial kalo here is dominated by a single strain—the muted purple Maui lehua hybrid. With this devastating loss of diversity, and modern mono-cropping practices, kalo is becoming increasingly vulnerable to disease, pests, weather, and other crop disruption forces.

Fortunately, the integrity of kalo is a high priority for many local policymakers. In 2009, the Hawai‘i State Legislature enacted SB-1099, a bill that protects the plant’s genetic biodiversity by prohibiting “the development, testing, propagation, release, importation, planting, or growing of genetically modified kalo” across the state. The thoughtful wording of SB-1099 highlights the undeniable importance of kalo as a cultural touchstone:

“Kalo intrinsically embodies the interdependency of the past, the present, and the future, the essence of procreation and regeneration, as the foundation of any sustainable practice. Kalo expresses the spiritual and physical well-being of not only the kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) and their heritage, but also symbolizes the environmental, social, and cultural values important to the State.”

SPIRIT FOOD

As an ancestor of the Hawaiian people, kalo is regarded as the pinnacle life source with the ability to heal the body. Its roots, leaves, and stem are extremely adaptable in cooking: With the application of modern culinary techniques and technology, kalo inspires all kinds of creative uses, from chips and pancakes to veggie burgers, curries, desserts, and even bubble teas.

In addition to the multitude of nutrients it provides as a superfood, kalo is an alkali-producing food with a low glycemic index that serves to balance the body’s pH factor, assisting in both the prevention and treatment of disease. Kalo as medicine is playing a role in combating chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Along with other traditional Hawaiian diet staples of breadfruit, sweet potatoes, fruit, and fish, the addition of kalo can spark life-changing rejuvenation in people with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and low blood sugar.

Kalo remains an enduring link tethering the Hawai‘i of today to a time when Hawaiians didn’t just eat the vegetable for energy, but also to nourish their spirits and stay connected with the ‘aina (land) and ‘aumakua (ancestors). As the push to revive kalo through new farms—and even backyard gardens—

marches on, the hope is that planting and harvesting kalo feeds the reciprocal relationship between man and earth, and consuming it sustains life and completes the cycle.

Many who enjoy kalo in its various forms today find the Hawaiian proverb “oi no i kalo m‘oa” to be truthful. Literally translated as, “one can eat cooked taro,” the sentiment celebrates the traditional belief that when poi is served, worry and conflict has no place at the table: “The work is done; one can sit at ease and enjoy himself.” [ eHI ]