Thanksgiving in Honomu

Of all the holidays we’ve experienced here on the Big Island so far, Thanksgiving was the best. From the delicious food and cozy weather to the sense of family and community, this year was one to remember.

With a twist of course… this year I was honored to participate in an ancient Hawaiian custom known as an imu. When I heard it first spoken of at our neighbor’s house, I didn’t understand why smoke and fire would be coming out of a large ostrich like bird. My confusion was soon corrected, and now has been replaced with much respect and some understanding.

As I was walking home from my Saturday yoga class at the gym a couple of weeks ago, our new acquaintance Tiny (who’s actually six four or so) told me there would be a Thanksgiving imu, and that we were invited and should bring something to throw in. I graciously accepted, and the Tuesday before went looking for him to get the details. He wasn’t home, but I was told I could find him downtown at Steve’s house (name changed) making preparations. I knocked on the wrong door at first but was guided to a couple of houses down.

Steve, Tiny and several other guys were hanging out, drinking beer and talking story in the open garage in the back of the house. My enthusiasm and interest in helping with the imu was soon rewarded, and I found myself embarking on a three-day adventure of chopping wood, cutting bananas with a machete, working huge white-hot lava rocks with a massive pair of tongs and altogether having a lot of fun. And drinking a good bit of beer.

Steve and his friends are mostly retired military guys with a lot of character and a great sense of humor. They told me crazy stories of their military days and great stories in general. I really enjoyed hanging out with them and just being allowed to participate at all was an honor. And in the process I got to get to know of my neighbors and community that much better.

The setup they have going is awesome. In back of the garage is a custom concrete set of stairs guarded by two large tikis leading up to the imu itself, a concrete platform and huge fire pit lined with firebrick, the light and delicate stuff you find in a kiln. It’s surrounded by bananas, ohia trees and hapu’u ferns and is covered by a large pole canopy. The pit is actually state certified, so Steve and his buddy Roger (again, name changed) can run the operation for fundraisers benefiting local schools and charities, or in this case for the community of Honomu’s Thanksgiving celebration. They seemed to run it like a restaurant, where Roger was the pitmaster and Steve ran the front of house and oversaw food preparation, although I got the feeling that either one of them could probably do the whole thing singlehandedly. They were extremely careful to execute everything the right way so as not run the risk of having their certification revoked.

I was put to work immediately, my first task was sorting the lava rocks they had collected, discarding any small or cracked ones (lest they explode, a possibility I never quite got comfortable with). Then it was chopping ohia wood to various sizes. This stuff is really hard and has a tendency to get nasty knots in it, so we had to truck off to Tiny’s and get the maul and chisel sharpened. We ended up with about a quarter cord of ohia stacked and ready to go.

After that, my friend Carl (changed…) showed me how to fell large banana plants with a cowboy rope and chainsaw. We then stacked the leaves in one pile, and the two foot stalks in another. Then, joy of joys, I got to split the two footers into quarters with a razor sharp machete, which splintered into ruler like shafts. I was told that the bamboo sticks acted as a buffer zone between the hot rocks and the meat, insulating against direct burning heat and allowing the mat to cook slowly and safely.

Then came the pyro part which started promptly at noon the day before Thanksgiving. We arranged the rocks and logs into a pile, with newspaper and smaller logs at the bottom, followed by steadily larger rocks and logs. This arrangement minimizes the amount of rock tumbling and subsequent restacking since the smaller logs burn quickly. Roger placed a long cardboard tube down into the center of the rock and wood pile, then poured flammables into the tube. He then lit the south end of the tube, and after if was burning steadily plunged it back into the pile. The tube acted like a giant carburetor, pulling air with a roar and feeding the blaze. Very soon the entire stack was engulfed in fire, serious porno for pyros.

 

The name of the game is to get the lava rocks white-hot and all of the logs reduced to red glowing coals. I was instructed that any logs not fully burned must be removed before placing any food in the imu, otherwise people could get sick. They had large tongs made from long metal rods which we used to move fallen rocks and logs back to the top of the pile. The heat was intense and the rocks were heavy and unwieldy… a couple of times the wind changed and cinders blasted me head on. I had very little hair on the front of my calves after this adventure!

Once the burn was safely underway, we switched our attention to the front of house, namely Meat Preparation. Steve and I walked around his yard trimming Ti leaves to be used as meat wrappers. Kate (name changed) and Roger were kind enough to show me how to clean, score and remove the stems from the leaves in the traditional way.

In the garage, Steve had tables set up covered in stacks of long foil sheets. We pulled 15 or so partially frozen pork butts from coolers, which I split apart with a food safe chisel and hammer. Then we sprinkled a ton of sea salt on the outside, then crisscrossed and wrapped them in Ti leaves, then wrapped them in foil. We used wire wrappers of various methods to indicate whose meat was whose.

The turkey preparation was similar, except we removed the gizzards (for a dark meat version of Tiny’s lau lau) and placed a half stick of butter in each cavity, plus a generous showering of garlic salt.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded this way, a very happy time with different people dropping in, lots of beer drinking, talk story, and Steve continually grilling up chicken or eggplants or chinese noodles for his eager helpers and guests.

The allotted time for Meat Insertion was 5:30 PM. We were a bit late, which made Roger nervous since the coals were primed and ready. But finally it was a go, and we raked the giant stack of burning rocks and coals into a bed in the pit. We then put down the banana stalks, with the most of them concentrated in the middle where most of the heat was. Too much banana on the outside, as I was told, could make the rocks too cold for the outlying meat and lau lau. Then we formed a meat bucket brigade, with everyone passing meat bundles from the prep area up the stairs and into Roger’s expert hands for placement in the imu.

After the meat was loaded, we covered everything with banana leaves, then wet burlap bags, then tarps, and then enough earth to cover the entire pit up to ground level.

That was a lot of work, but we weren’t finished yet. We had to hang out all night and make sure no leaks developed. The danger is that a leak can let air down into the pit, which can restart the fire, burning all the meat. Roger had a nose for this… we would be hanging out, then he would suddenly run to the back, bending down and looking for the faint wavering of steam from a leak. I was told he could smell it even inside the house! It was great to learn what to look for, and after a while I think I was beginning to be able to smell it too.

I stayed around until ten or so, then walked up the hill back home, ready for Thanksgiving.

I was up the next day at 5:30, made coffee for everybody and headed back to the pit. Things were well underway, so I grabbed a shovel and helped dig up the goods. It was hot in the pit, the smell of charcoal, bananas and earth is something I will never forget. After intense digging and effort, we began to see the foil meat packages, and again formed the meat brigade. Each person’s meat was called out based on the custom wire wrapper. After all the bundles were removed, I stomped around in the pit, removing what dirt and burnt banana stalk that I could.

Then I went around to the front of the garage to a happy scene indeed. The sun was just starting to come up in all its glory of pink, purple, blue and orange. Tiny had the rice cooker full of rice, and was unwrapping the lau lau. I was offered the last Heineken in the cooler, and was given a plate, which I loaded up with lau lau, rice and kalua pork. Talk about some good meat… it was perfect. Crispy, yet tender, perfect smoke, just mouthwaterignly delicious. And the lau laus were pure greasy goodness, the taro leaf wrapper adding a minty tea like taste to the smoked meat. It was a fairly intense evening and morning, but during that meal and the whole day after, pure aloha reigned.

After the early morning mix plate, I said my goodbyes and went home to help Jen make stuffing and cheesy potatoes for Reverend Ed’s Thanksgiving feast. That, and of course listen to Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo, and watch the Cowboys and some of the Macy’s parade. It really felt like Thanksgiving, I have to tell you.

We walked down to Mr. Ed’s bakery with our neighbors and some of their friends from Canada. Another happy scene… people lined up in the bakery for the buffet, and outside at the tables under the canopy. Smiles abounded as we got our fill of chow mein, kalua pork and turkey, taro root casserole, and of course stuffing, gravy, purple potato pie and all the trimmings. Jen’s potatoes were a big hit, with one gal solely responsible for dolign them out. First Thanksgiving with chopsticks!

It seemed like the whole town came out for the feast, it was really something. After the feast, we went back to Jerry’s for some porch time and a glass of wine. All in all, a real Thanksgiving to remember. Aloha nunui, Hawaii!!