Pat Anderson doubted a potluck dinner could soothe her heart’s longing for Hawaii, but her daughter was ready to try anything to help her mother adjust to life half a world away from paradise.
So her daughter bought a ticket to see international ukulele sensation Jake Shimabukuro in downtown Raleigh and set up a table outside the show with a sign-up sheet for a potluck. Anyone who missed Hawaii was invited to put their name down and bring a dish.
That first event drew 45 homesick island lovers, and the group has grown steadily ever since. Earlier this month, The Hawaii Club of North Carolina, Ka Pu’uwai ‘O Hawai’i, hosted its 10th annual luau, complete with a whole pig cooked in traditional Hawaiian style – wrapped in banana leaves and damp burlap and buried overnight in an imu, a shallow pit oven, atop glowing coals and lava rocks. The unearthing and unwrapping of the steaming hog anchored a day of feasting, hula dancing and aloha for a crowd of about 150 gathered in the spacious Garner backyard of long-time Hawaii club members Brian and Carolyn McKay.
Two long rows of tables bore the pulled pig along with an array of traditional Hawaiian favorites. The pork was as tender as any North Carolina pit-cooked barbecue, but wore a sprinkling of sea salt in place of sauce. The meat, infused with the smoky flavor of the banana leaves, was well accompanied by the mild pudding-like Hawaiian favorite poi.
Side dishes included noodle salads; laulau, which is chicken, fish, pork fat and spinach wrapped in banana leaves then steamed; lomi salmon, a combination of finely chopped fish and vegetables reminiscent of ceviche; as well as Spam sushi, Spam kebabs and a lush coconut cake. Interspersed among those dishes were the usual potluck suspects – baked beans, meatballs, taco dip, pasta salad, baked macaroni-and-cheese and apple pie.
The point of the feast wasn’t to flawlessly re-create a Hawaiian luau, but to cultivate aloha – the spirit of Hawaii – for those who miss it, many of them as much as Pat Anderson did.
Longing for home
Anderson relocated to Raleigh in 2004 after 32 years in Hawaii. As a 26-year-old newlywed from Los Angeles, she moved to Kaua’i and later to Honolulu. Over the decades of raising their family there, Pat and her husband saw the number of Hawaii’s pineapple and sugar farms dwindle as more and more land was sold for resort and residential development. Meanwhile, middle-class job numbers shrank and the cost of island living rose. By the time her own children were old enough to settle down, Hawaii was no longer an affordable option for their family. So, they found their way to Raleigh, and Pat did, too.
“At first, I was just so homesick I was going to get on a plane and go home,” she said.
Nothing felt familiar. The problem was more than getting used to North Carolina’s subtly charming terrain after experiencing Hawaii’s spectacular beauty. Pat missed the people, too.
“Hawaii is a very multicultural place,” she said. “You have a much broader range of cultural activities.”
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, some 2,400 miles from San Francisco, Hawaii is the most isolated patch of thriving civilization on Earth. Japan is 3,800 miles away and the Philippines more than 5,000. But cultural forces from these and many other locales converge on the tiny archipelago to create a unique melting pot. Hawaiian cultural history is so much more than the popular shorthand references of Spam and hula familiar to most Americans.
That’s not to discount the importance of Spam or hula. Among the most popular dishes at the lu’au was the Spam sushi or musubi. At the heart of each piece is a hunk of Spam that has been fried in a glaze of soy sauce and sugar. It’s then sprinkled with furikake, a Japanese spice rub, wrapped in sushi rice and held together with nori. Every Spam lover seems to have a recipe for it, and every incarnation I tried was extremely satisfying – meaty, salty, chewy. All good.
Even more diverse than the Spam sushi recipes were the hulas. Women of every age – and a couple of men – danced the hula at the Hawaii Club’s lu’au, beginning with a quartet who swayed a memorial to two of the club’s recently deceased members just after the blowing of a conch shell began the feast. Their willowy arm motions and the smooth shifting of their hips combined to convey a gentle tribute far different than the frantic shimmying one most often imagines hula to be.
The tastes of home
The lu’au was weeks in the making, and a group had gathered in the McKays’ home on the eve of the event to make sure it all came together. In the kitchen, a group stood around an island chopping gallons of lomi salmon ingredients – raw diced salmon, green onions and tomatoes. After chopping, they massaged the ingredients together by hand, which is why it’s called lomi (Hawaiian for massage).
Afterward, the group moved to the dining table, where they wrapped the laulau. One piece each of raw chicken, fish and pork fat and a bit of spinach went into the center of a long ti leaf that had been soaked in water. The bundles were tied and steamed the day of the lu’au, with the meat flavored by the fat and the vegetal taste of the leaves.
Meanwhile, Brian McKay and a few others ignited the fire in the imu, a rock-lined hole about 18 inches deep that McKay had loaded with hardwood. The orange flames stretched 8 feet into the air before settling down. After three hours, the coals were ready, and the pig, a couple of turkeys and a mess of sweet potatoes were loaded on top to roast.
A pile of lava rocks rested in the middle of the pile, a few of which would go inside the pig. A family heirloom, the lava rocks came to the states with Brian’s grandfather when he left the islands for the U.S. mainland.
These days, Pat Anderson tells the story of the Hawaii Club with a mix of wonder and delight. When her daughter saw the depths of her homesickness, she told her, “Mom, I’m going to find the Hawaiians.” After that first potluck, the group grew steadily. Today, it is a 501(c)(3), whose mission is to promote education of Hawaiian culture. Members perform hula for seniors in long-term care facilities and visit schools and prisons.
Some members are of Hawaiian ancestry, some spent years living on the islands, a few have never seen that corner of paradise, but found kinship with those who love it.
“We’ve had people meet and get married and have kids, even move back to Hawaii,” she said. “We felt like when we got it started we didn’t realize it but we answered a need that somebody had.”
Amber Nimocks is a former News Observer food editor. Reach her at ambernim@yahoo.com.
Learn about the club
For more information about the The Hawaii Club of North Carolina, visit hawaiiclubnc.org.
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