# 14 Rice at Every Meal

One of the hardest things to keep off a Hawaiian's diet is rice. Rice at Breakfast, Rice for Lunch, Rice for Dinner. Only one thing finishes these phrases: Spam, Eggs and ________. Beef Stew with _____. Chili and _____. Shoyu chicken and _____. Loco Moco comes with _____. Only one thing taste better than mash potatoes and fried fish, Rice, of course. Imagine if 7-Eleven didn't sell products with rice, all that would be left is slurpees and water. Well, maybe not but a bento wouldn't be the same. Rice is the staple food of the Hawaiian islands. Every home has a rice cooker, and every child grows up learning to cook rice. We say cook rice but we don't really cook it, we just wash it. If asked to do so many Hawaiians wouldn't know how to cook rice on the stove. Well disciplined Hawaiians learn to cook rice very quickly at an early age. If not, then suffer the consequences of being called back into the house with the most embarrassing line a kid could hear from his/her parents, "Eh! Kimo! Git back in hea and cook rice befo' you go play outside!"

#1: Poi

There is nothing more Hawaiian than poi. Sure, we live in a time when fast food restaurants, expensive dining and processed foods can either make you fat, sick or deprived. But nothing to a Hawaiian will make him or her feel more Hawaiian than sitting at a table with ohana sharing a huge bowl of poi. Utensils are normally optional. Nowadays with homophobic aunties and cousins you might get your own bowl, spoon included. Heck, at luaus they'll give it to you in a Styrofoam cup. And in recent years the cups are getting smaller. Well, the delicacy is normally combined with a number of other Hawaiian cuisines to give it more unique flavor. For example, poi and lomi salmon (chopped tomatoes and salmon), poi and dried aku (fish), poi and opae (dried shrimp), poi and beef stew, poi and pig, poi and sardines, poi and hot dogs, just to name a few. Some Hawaiians prefer their poi with a little more favor so they might do some interesting things to it like letting it ferment. They let fungus grow on its surface like mold grows on bread. Not to the point of hideous blackness but a film of white fuzz none the least. This gives the poi a sour, fermented taste, kind of like beer. This seems to be real popular with the older generations when their taste buds start going. Despite it tasting like paste to the whites and who-knows-what for the blacks and every other race on the earth, poi is one of the healthiest foods on the planet. And now I’m not sure when this started but somehow sugar got in the mix. Sugar with poi? That’s right all you sugar-in-the-poi eaters you know who you are… what can I say…stay Hawaiian man!!!