Recently, I pounded poi for the first time. I always wanted to learn how to do it and have been bugging Kealoha Domingo to show me how for the longest time. Finally, this weekend at the Hawaii Food and Wine Festival event on the Big Island, I pounded my first paiai. That night Kealoha served a dish of paiai with taro leaves, pork belly and sweet potato.
What I realized was twofold — first, the actual pounding of the kalo into poi and second, the time it took allowed for much conversation on a two-seat board. Kealoha was on the other seat in front of me and, being curious, I asked him a lot of questions. We know that the kalo can be ground in a machine and made into poi. He shared that he preferred this old-fashioned way over the machine because it gave time to either get into your head by yourself or have a conversation. There is much respect for kalo and the making of paiai and poi. The old-fashioned way — the longer process — struck a chord for me. I am old-school and embraced all those ways of learning while building my culinary foundation.
They say that if you are thinking about business with someone, one of the best ways to get to know someone is to spend four or five hours on the golf course with them playing the game. Pounding poi together is kind of the same. It takes a lot of time pounding to get it to the paiai stage, which I now prefer over poi. The texture is like firm mochi or two-day-old Chinese gau. In the end, it’s an old-fashioned way, and I resonate with that because we live in a world that is about speed, fast and just-get-it-done mentality.
Social skills are diminishing and conflict resolution has become harder to do. The idea of hooponopono, talking about things and getting to know someone well first, sometimes appears not as important.
The journey — the processes during the journey are where you learn and grow from — is more important than the destination. Sometimes the deliberate, mindful approach is better than the quick way. We lose communication and people skills if we don’t use it, just like our muscles. So much misunderstanding and miscommunication happens over text and emails.
I will look forward to the next time I have a chance to pound poi with someone. It is both relaxing and nurturing at the same time. It was instinctual for me to feed Kealoha and my sister Hina some of the paiai that I was pounding, and little did I know what was going through Hina’s mind, which is a story for another day.
Kealoha, mahalo for giving me this experience. I’m forever grateful and appreciative.
Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.
