Cooking in an Imu:

Imu rocks, waiting to be used.

“Imu, first of all you dig a pit,” Michael explains, “about three or four feet around, maybe two feet deep, depending on what size pig you’re putting in, or how much you’re putting in the imu. Some guys put a whole pig, three to four turkeys, breadfruit, different things in the imu. So you make a pit that’s about three or four feet. And then you put all the wood inside the imu, which is the pit, and then you put all the stones (which is pōhaku in Hawaiian), on top of the wood. And then you light that thing on fire.

“As the wood starts burning, it’ll go down into the hole, because the wood starts to disappear and turn into charcoal. The stones will turn red. And when the fire is all done burning, only the stones are red, then you put the pig inside. You get the banana stumps, crush them up, make them real thin, spread them all over the hot rocks, and then you put whatever you’re going to cook on top of that, and then you cover that up with the dirt.

Guy is heating the rocks in the imu pit. Guy Holt photo.

“We put the pig in a wire or sometimes in a basket. It depends. If it’s big, you quarter him, it you put in a wire basket and set them all on top of that. And then you put tī leaf on them, then put a cloth over him, and then you cover him with dirt.

“You let it sit, eight hours is plenty. And depending on how hot you got the stone. If the stone’s not really, really hot, then you came leave them for ten hours, and you could leave them in twelve hours if you wanted. You just got to put a lot more banana pule inside so it doesn’t burn the meat.

“The rocks usually would have to have a lot of holes in them. You don’t want nothing that’s flat, because when it gets really hot, the smooth pōhaku will just crack. They’ll crack with the heat. But the ones with the holes inside, they got all the pores in them. They get hot nice, and they don’t crack as easy, just something like that. If you took a picture of them, you’ll notice there’s a lot of pores inside the rock.

“The food comes out ono, good. A little smoky. That’s what I like. Really good.”

Pacific Worlds > Hā‘ena, Kaua‘i > Sustenance > Gathering