The uses of seaweed as food in Hawaii

Abstract

Rapid and frequent air service to Hawaii has brought about a stronger westernization in food choices and food habits than was possible 30 or 40 years ago. The transport of more fresh foods from the Orient is also possible. Western fastfood establishments such as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken are patronized as heavily as similar places in California. They have nearly entirely replaced "saiinin stands" of pre-World War II where a bowl of noodles and a bamboo stick of barbecued meat could be had quickly. Chinese restaurants are the favorite choice of students in ethnobotany at the University of Hawaii (polls taken in 1976, 1977), but there is no question that a hamburger or hot dog is everyone's favorite food, regardless of ethnic background. Against this change in food availability and food habits, continued use of seaweeds in the diet is surprising. Those of Hawaiian, Japanese and Filipino ancestry, the principal ethnic groups historically having seaweeds in their diets, purchase enough seaweeds to keep several suppliers in business (personal observation). As used by these groups of people, seaweed food preparations appear to be unsuitable as additions to standard western meals. Their flavor is inherently "strong," i.e., very definite, unlike for example the relatively pallid string bean; they may look like tangled strings; their color (black, brown, purple, dark red) unlike most western foods. Where in a western menu would you place a dish containing seaweed dressed in soy sauce and sugar (all three items with a distinctive flavor); where cold rolls of rice wrapped in purple seaweed, and where chopped, salted fresh seaweed, intended to flavor something bland, but not used as a gravy or sauce? I suggest that two to three meals a week are probably traditional Hawaiian, Japanese or Filipino in the examples chosen above, the remainder being western, i.e., "meat and potatoes." Hawaiian preparation of seaweed or li,nu (edible seaweed) consists of chopping or mashing the fresh raw weed, adding salt and perhaps fresh chili pepper, and eating it as a relish in a fish and poi (or more recently, rice) meal. Poi is derived from taro, Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott, and is steamed then pounded with water into a sticky paste with a consistency like that of chocolate pudding. It is served cold and has a faintly acid flavor. The piquancy of a variety of seaweeds added to bland poi or rice has been one of the historical and current reasons for retaining seaweeds in the food choices of Hawaiians, used here to include only native Polynesian descendants. From a list compiled by Reed (1907) of 70 "economic" seaweeds used by Hawaiians for food, Abbott and Williamson (1974) were able to identify 29 species by both Hawaiian common name and Latin binomial. The discrepancy reflects in part, multiplicity of Hawaiian names for the same species, or a lack of knowledge of the meaning of Hawaiian common names, resulting in inapplicable or inappropriate names for certain species. It is at the native Hawaiian feast, a luau, that celebrates the first birthday of a child, or the 75th birthday of a parent or grandparent, or the 50th wedding anniversary that a variety of seaweeds is found on the festive board. At these times, those who know where certain species grow are charged with collection and preparation as their contribution to the feast. At least four species of algae commonly appear: limu kohu (Asparagopsis taxiformis, a red alga), limnu eleele