60 Fun Facts About Luau

Which Hawaiian king broke the eating kapu in 1819 by dining with women, paving the way for luaus?

Born Liholiho, he was pressured into the meal by his mother Keōpūolani and the powerful queen Kaʻahumanu after two days of drifting in his canoe.

What is the name of Hawaii's 1819 taboo-breaking that let women eat forbidden foods and dine with men?

The name literally means 'free eating'; messengers were sent across the islands to announce that the kapu had fallen.

The word lūʻau itself is the Hawaiian name for what?

The feast took its name from a stew of young taro tops cooked with coconut milk and octopus or chicken; the older words for the party were pāʻina and ʻahaʻaina.

Under the Hawaiian kapu system, which food was forbidden to women as the body form of the god Lono?

Most bananas (Kanaloa) and coconuts were off-limits too, so the first luau was as much a political statement as a meal.

Before 'lūʻau' became the everyday word, a large Hawaiian feast was called what?

Smaller dinners were pāʻina; the name lūʻau is documented in print from at least 1856, in a report on a royal wedding celebration.

Kālua pig, the centerpiece of a luau, is slow-cooked in an imu. What is an imu?

The pit is lined with hot stones and pounded banana stalks, then buried under soil so no steam escapes for several hours.

When a whole pig is cooked in an imu, what is placed inside its body cavity so the meat cooks through?

Cooks choose rocks with very little moisture, because a wet stone can explode from the steam trapped inside it.

Which plant's foliage, wrapped around the meat, gives kālua pig its characteristic flavor?

Hardwood smoke matters, but the wrapping is what separates true kālua pig from any other slow-roasted whole hog.

Poi is graded as 'one-finger', 'two-finger' or 'three-finger'. What does that label describe?

Three-finger poi runs like applesauce, two-finger like pudding, and one-finger is the dense, freshly pounded paste called paʻiʻai.

Left at room temperature for a few days, freshly made poi does what?

Lactobacillus, yeasts and Geotrichum fungi do the work, giving old poi a smell close to plain yogurt; some people stir in milk or sugar to soften it.

In Hawaiian belief, what had to stop the moment a bowl of poi was uncovered?

The spirit of Hāloa, the legendary ancestor of the Hawaiian people, was thought to be present whenever poi was served.

In lomi-lomi salmon, the luau side dish of salted salmon, tomato and onion, what does 'lomi' mean?

The fish is rubbed with salt by hand, then worked into the diced vegetables; a shrimp version, lomi ʻōpae, was popularized by singer Henry Kapono.

Haupia, the classic luau dessert, is a pudding made primarily from what?

Early European explorers compared it to blancmange; the traditional version is vegan, with no gelatin, eggs or dairy.

What does 'laulau', the Hawaiian pork bundle named for its ti wrapping, literally mean?

Unlike its Samoan cousin palusami, Hawaiian laulau contains no coconut milk, onions or spices, and is eaten with poi or rice.

The word poke, as in the raw-fish dish, literally means what in Hawaiian?

Poke started as trimmings from the day's catch eaten raw with sea salt and seaweed; the soy-and-sesame version came with Japanese plantation workers.

ʻInamona, the roasted-nut-and-salt relish that seasons traditional poke, is made from which nut?

The same nuts, strung on a palm midrib and lit one by one, once served ancient Hawaiians as a rough clock, each burning about fifteen minutes.

Roughly how many cans of Spam does Hawaii, the top per-capita US consumer, buy each year?

There is even a Waikiki Spam Jam street festival every spring, and a 2017 wave of Spam thefts was blamed on organized crime.

Spam musubi is a slice of grilled Spam on a block of rice, wrapped in a band of what?

It follows the Japanese onigiri tradition, and in 1999 L&L Hawaiian Barbecue put it on a mainland menu for the first time.

Because it is so popular in the islands, canned Spam is sometimes given what tongue-in-cheek nickname?

Locals also call it 'Portagee Steak'; both Burger King and McDonald's serve it in their Hawaii restaurants.

Victor 'Trader Vic' Bergeron claimed to have invented the Mai Tai at his Oakland restaurant in what year?

His rival Donn Beach insisted it was a knock-off of his own Q.B. Cooler, and the two feuded over credit for decades.

The name Mai Tai is said to come from maitaʻi, a Tahitian word meaning what?

The classic recipe is rum, orange liqueur, orgeat and lime; Trader Vic's kept it unpublished for nearly 30 years, so competitors had to guess.

The Mai Tai reached Hawaii in 1953 when Bergeron wrote a cocktail menu for the Moana and which other hotel?

By 1959 it was being called the 'top tourist tantalizer', and Hawaiian bars soon added pineapple juice and a dark-rum float.

Which liqueur gives the Blue Hawaii cocktail its signature color?

Harry Yee mixed the first one at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in 1957 after a Bols sales rep asked him to showcase the Dutch distiller's blue liqueur.

Tiki culture is dated from the opening of Don's Beachcomber in Hollywood at the end of Prohibition. What year?

The Zombie was the house's most notorious drink; a copy was poured at the 1939 New York World's Fair by Monte Proser.

Donn Beach, the 'founding father' of tiki bars, was born with what name?

He legally adopted the stage name after his Hollywood restaurant became Don the Beachcomber; a 1946 Life magazine spread showed one of his luaus.

What was the Oakland bar Victor Bergeron opened in 1934 called before it became Trader Vic's?

A 1937 trip to Cuba and a visit to Don the Beachcomber inspired the tropical makeover and the new nickname.

The fire-knife dance performed at luau shows comes from which Pacific islands?

It descends from ailao, a warrior's display of twirling a serrated war club; the towel-wrapped, flaming machete is a modern touch.

What is the fire-knife dance called in its homeland?

The Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu hosts the annual World Fire Knife Dance Competition.

Hawaii celebrates Lei Day on which date every year?

Honolulu marked the 81st celebration in 2008 by stringing a lei more than a mile long at Kapiʻolani Park.

Lei Day was dreamed up in 1927 by which poet, then working at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin?

Columnist Grace Tower Warren supplied the slogan 'May Day is Lei Day', and a song of that title was written the same year.

The island of Niʻihau is famous for lei made from what?

Queen Emma was photographed wearing multiple strands of them; the shells (pūpū) are gathered by hand on the beach.

In 1830, which Hawaiian queen forbade public hula performances under missionary pressure?

The chiefs kept patronizing hula privately, and by the 1850s public dancing was allowed again under a licensing system.

Which ukulele-playing Hawaiian king was nicknamed the Merrie Monarch and brought hula back to court?

Hilo's week-long Merrie Monarch Festival, which starts every Easter Sunday, has honored him since 1964.

In Hawaiian, the word 'ukulele' roughly translates as what?

Legend ties it to Edward Purvis, a small, fidgety officer at the royal court who played it expertly.

The ukulele evolved from instruments brought to Hawaii in the 1880s by immigrants from which country?

The machete, cavaquinho and rajão arrived with plantation workers from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde.

The three Madeiran cabinet makers credited as the first ukulele builders reached Honolulu in 1879 on which ship?

Two weeks after landing, the Hawaiian Gazette reported the newcomers were 'delighting the people with nightly street concerts'.

The traditionally preferred wood for a Hawaiian-made ukulele is which native acacia?

Kamaka, the Honolulu maker founded in 1916, also invented the oval 'pineapple' body shape.

Modern hula danced to guitar and ukulele, as opposed to ancient hula kahiko, is called what?

The word means 'to wander' or 'drift'; costumes are more modest and songs can tell stories from any era since the 1800s.

Hula students in training were traditionally placed under the protection of which goddess?

Ti leaves were sacred to her, so only priests and chiefs could wear ti-leaf lei during religious rituals; every hālau kept a small altar to her.

Elvis Presley wore a red aloha shirt on the Blue Hawaii album cover. Which designer made it?

Shaheen founded his company in 1948 and became known for higher-quality prints after statehood, when the older tropical designs were considered tacky.

What did the 1966 Hawaiian workplace custom promoting aloha shirts become known as on the mainland?

The Hawaii Fashion Guild had earlier handed two aloha shirts to every state legislator in a campaign called Operation Liberation.

A popular folk etymology splits aloha into alo, meaning 'presence', and hā, meaning what?

Linguists trace the word to a Proto-Polynesian greeting meaning 'love, pity, or compassion', but the folk version is what most visitors hear.

In Disney's Lilo & Stitch (2002), on which Hawaiian island does Stitch crash-land?

The film's backgrounds were painted in watercolor, a technique Disney had largely abandoned after Dumbo in 1941.

Before Lilo renames him Stitch, the alien is known by what experiment number?

The film's soundtrack leans on Elvis, with five of his recordings plus covers by Wynonna and the A-Teens.

In Blue Hawaii (1961), Elvis's Chad Gates dodges the family fruit business to take what job?

Angela Lansbury played his mother despite being not yet 36; Presley was 26 at the time.

Hawaiian pizza, the ham-and-pineapple staple of many luau party menus, was invented in which country?

Sam Panopoulos named it after the brand on his cans of Hawaiian Pineapple Company fruit at his Ontario restaurant in 1962.

Which Oahu-born musician developed the lap-style 'Hawaiian' steel guitar around 1890?

He toured Europe with the Broadway show The Bird of Paradise, and the sound later fed directly into American country music.

Which member of the Hawaiian royal family wrote the farewell song "Aloha ʻOe"?

She composed it after a horseback trip to a ranch at Maunawili in the late 1870s, humming the tune all the way back to Honolulu.

A traditional luau was eaten sitting on the floor over mats woven from what?

The mats are called lauhala; the centerpieces running down the middle were usually made of ti leaves.

What utensils were provided at a traditional luau?

Everything, poi included, was eaten by hand, which is why poi's thickness is still described by the number of fingers it takes.

Fermented and distilled ti roots yield which traditional Hawaiian liquor?

The same sweet, molasses-like root pulp was eaten as candy across Polynesia, and ti was planted at house corners to keep evil spirits away.

A woman wearing a plumeria over her right ear is, by modern Polynesian custom, signaling what?

Plumeria, called melia in Hawaiian, is not native: it arrived in the late 19th century and quickly became the go-to lei flower.

Which newspaper's 1856 report on King Kamehameha IV's wedding is the earliest known use of the modern name?

The palace grounds were opened to the native population, who partook of a luau prepared for them by the newlywed king and Queen Emma.

Besides taro leaves and coconut milk, lūʻau stew is usually made with chicken or what?

The stew's young taro leaves gave the whole feast its modern name.

Which Hawaiian singer did Donn Beach book to entertain at his large public luaus?

In a 1986 interview Beach took credit for turning private, home-based luaus into big public affairs on the mainland.

A 1946 Life magazine article showed one of Donn Beach's famous luaus held in which California community?

Beach, founder of the first tiki bar, is often credited with commercialising the luau on the US mainland.

What is the name for freshly pounded, undiluted and unfermented taro, the thickest form of poi?

It is the 'one-finger' grade; three-finger poi is thinned to the consistency of applesauce.

What starch was the original thickener for haupia before cornstarch became common?

Traditional haupia is vegan, with no gelatin, eggs or dairy, and early explorers compared it to blancmange.

In Lei Day pageantry, which island is symbolised by the yellow ʻilima lei?

Each island gets a colour and flower: Maui's is the pink lokelani rose and Kauaʻi's the purple mokihana.

By Hawaiian custom, what should you never do with a lei you have been given?

A lei represents love, so discarding one casually is seen as throwing away the giver's love.