Poi

Today was a poi making day.  It’s one of my favorite things to make because well, my hubby typically does the whole thing, and I just get to eat it.  Sometimes I help with the clean up, which as anyone knows who makes poi, it can be kind of messy and sticky.  Today however, he had my daughter and her boyfriend helping out.

First he harvested some lehua taro.  It’s a purplish looking taro and the poi made from it, is especially sweet.  I’ve always liked poi, some say it is an acquired taste, and some say they will NEVER acquire the taste.  Everyone in my immediate family loves poi.  I even used to put poi in my children’s baby bottles.  Poi is hypoallergenic, which is especially important for babies.  It is high in calories and easily digestible.  I had tiny babies, so we were always trying to give them some extra calories.  It’s also a good source of both iron and calcium.   It’s truly one of the best foods for baby,  and I feel very fortunate that when my kids were babies, we lived in place where we it was readily available.  Back when my children were babies, we used to buy poi, but now that we have our little farm, we grown a number of kinds of taro.

Poi is made by pounding steamed taro until it has a creamy consistency (no lumps).  My husband made a beautiful poi pounding board (see below), and we use it when we’re just making a small amount of poi (just the two of us).

But when we’re making poi in large quantities, we use our champion juicer.  That’s what we used today.  We’ve tried other things, like really good and unfortunately really expensive blenders, but the consistency of the taro during the process is just too thick.  We’ve literally burned the motors out on countless blenders.

Here’s the steamed taro before we put it in the juicer.

I took a little video of my daughter and her boyfriend making the poi with the juicer.   This is the first time I’ve posted a video on here, so crossing fingers it actually works.  Hmmm, does this make me a vlogger?  Well here goes:

 

Tonight for dinner we’re having this fresh poi along with corned beef luau (which is made from the leaves of the taro plant), and lomilomi salmon.  I can hardly wait!

 

 

Follow my blog