Haupia

On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 03:45:02 -0000, "RI Kanaka"
<rhodeislandkanakaDELETETHISm> wrote:

>
>
> <beans@smithfarms.com> wrote in message
> news:1175899801-sch@news.lava.net...

> My guess is that, although the first Hawaiians brought coconut plants
> with them, they also probably found the shores of Hawaii already
> covered
> with coconut and other palm plants that millenia earlier had drifted
> across the Pacific as seeds from other distant lands. Pretty hardy
> seed, the coconut.
My husband the historian says there was no proof of that despite what
we would have imagined. Early visitors remarked that coconuts were
not nearly as numerous here as they were in the more southern islands.

We are close to the northern range of where Coco nuts would grow.

aloha,
beans
roast beans to kona to email
farmers of Pure Kona

> So, speaking of taro and haupia, why not combine the two and make --
>
> KULOLO!
>
> 4 cups grated taro
> 3/4 cup brown sugar
> 3/4 cup honey
> 1 cup coconut milk
> 2 ti leaves
>
> Mix all ingredients together. Line a bread loaf with foil, then top
> with
> ti leaves, cut to fit the pan. Pour pudding into pan and cover with
> foil. Bake 2 hours at 400 degrees. Remove foil in the last hour to
> brown
> the top. Serves 12.
>
> I haven't tried this recipe but sounds ono. Just make sure you don't
> use GM taro.

....finding taro and ti leaves is a little intimating - is grated taro
as bland as poi? It would make a nice vehicle for the coconut milk
and honey (since they are both fairly delicate). Maybe some lehua
honey, eh?

> I made my first batch of haupia tonight and it wasn't bad.

Round #2

1 can of coconut milk (14 oz size, equals 1, 2/3 cup)
1 cup water
1/2 cup
1/3 cup cornstarch

Much better! Coconut flavor comes right through and is plenty deep
without the vanilla. Less cornstarch makes a more delicate pudding,
and I put it in a Pyrex 8 x 4 pan (approximate size) and pudding
thickness is about 1".

Maybe I'll try to find a whole coconut and grate and toast it as a
topper - I'm closer to Shangri-La every day! (smile)

"Jonnie Santos" <jonniesantos@> wrote in message
news:1175978702-sch@news.lava.net...
>

>
> ...finding taro and ti leaves is a little intimating - is grated taro
> as bland as poi? It would make a nice vehicle for the coconut milk
> and honey (since they are both fairly delicate). Maybe some lehua
> honey, eh?
>
>
Eh, where you stay, cuz even I can get taro here in Rhode Island? Well,
kind of. Actually the chain supermarkets here carry malanga, which is a
Central American dryland tuber that has a similar taste, even has the
dreaded calcium oxalate crystals. Ti leaf is more hard to come by
unless I get someone back in the islands to ship it to me, but it's more
for lining the pan in the recipe than anything else.

Poi may be bland, especially when fresh because it gets diluted with all
that water (I prefer it 1or 2 days old for the slightly sour taste).
Straight taro, boiled or baked, has a stronger flavor, still rather
neutral, but I wouldn't describe it a bland.

"Carl Brandauer" <brandy@icolorado.edu> wrote in message
news:1175978706-sch@news.lava.net...

>
> Sherwin Carlquist in "Hawaii A Natural History" wrote 'We do not know
> for
> certain, but there is a strong possibility that cocnut palms did not
> exist
> in the Hawaiian iskands before the Polynesians brought them.'
>
> He talks about many other plants as well, eyesight problems make it
> too
> difficult for me to read let alone write about then now.
>
> Cheers - Carl
>

I just happen to have that same book right here! It was the textbook
for a Hawaiian Natural History course that I took eons ago at UH, taught
by a "Dream Team" of Hawaii zoologists and botanists, such as Allison
Kay, Charles Lamoureux, Sheila Conant, Alan Ziegler, and even Harold St.
John, who was well into his 90s when I took the course (still driving
too, although he almost broadsided me once when he suddenly pulled into
traffic on East Manoa Rd).

In that same chapter that you quoted, Carlquist mentions that the
prevailing equatorial currents in the Northern and Southern hemispheres
both flow westward (Northern current clockwise, Southern
counter-clockwise due to the rotation of the earth) and between them the
eastward flowing counter current, make it difficult for a floating or
rafting plant of southern-hemispheric origin to cross 3 currents to land
on a Hawaiian shore. He notes the absence of many common S. Pacific
shore plants from Hawaiian beaches as additional evidence of the
difficulty that such drifting flora might have in reaching Hawaii. He
ends the paragraph with the above quoted sentence expressing some doubt
that coconuts preceded the Polynesians. Yet earlier in the chapter he
paradoxically speculates that a dryland plant like the koa, "whose
closest relative is not in the Pacific at all, but is Acacia
heterophylla of Mauritius...probably floated from Australia by some rare
chance." He goes on to say that "the wiliwili might be another
example - the only relative in the Pacific is located on Tahiti,
although one would expect a tree readily carried by seawater would
become established on many Pacific islands."

I agree with Carlquist that "we do not know for certain". But I'd
certainly put all my money on the seaworthy coconut before the koa,
wiliwili, hala or any other floating S. Pacific plant to able to survive
months drifting at sea to land and then flourish in Hawaii.

<beans@smithfarms.com> wrote in message
news:1175978700-sch@news.lava.net...
>
> On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 03:45:02 -0000, "RI Kanaka"
> <rhodeislandkanakaDELETETHISm> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> <beans@smithfarms.com> wrote in message
>> news:1175899801-sch@news.lava.net...
>
>> My guess is that, although the first Hawaiians brought coconut plants
>> with them, they also probably found the shores of Hawaii already
>> covered
>> with coconut and other palm plants that millenia earlier had drifted
>> across the Pacific as seeds from other distant lands. Pretty hardy
>> seed, the coconut.
> My husband the historian says there was no proof of that despite what
> we would have imagined. Early visitors remarked that coconuts were
> not nearly as numerous here as they were in the more southern islands.
>
> We are close to the northern range of where Coco nuts would grow.
>
> aloha,
> beans
> roast beans to kona to email
> farmers of Pure Kona

As I said, it's "my guess..." What we need is some ship carrying 60,000
pairs of Nike shoes to spill its cargo in the South Pacific and wait and
see if any end up in Hawaii.

> Have you ever "toasted" coconut? I just did it for the first time and
> it takes a long time in the pan to start browning but then it goes
> quickly. That was unusual as it seemingly picked up speed. But the

Nope, not even tried yet (I haven't bought a whole coconut in a
decade, at least). I'm guessing the speed is probably related to the
moisture content; I'll be sure to watch it (thanks). Did you use a
325-350 oven, or something else? Sorry, I have done zero research on
this so far.

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:40:03 -0000, "Jonnie Santos"
<jonniesantos@> wrote:

>
>> Have you ever "toasted" coconut? I just did it for the first time
>> and
>> it takes a long time in the pan to start browning but then it goes
>> quickly. That was unusual as it seemingly picked up speed. But the
>
> Nope, not even tried yet (I haven't bought a whole coconut in a
> decade, at least). I'm guessing the speed is probably related to the
> moisture content; I'll be sure to watch it (thanks). Did you use a
> 325-350 oven, or something else? Sorry, I have done zero research on
> this so far.
>
>
No I pan fried it. It was dry raw coconut from the health food store.
It was tasty too:)

I think the stuff I did was down to the coconut and the oil in the
coconut flakes.

Take care.

aloha,
beans