You Are What You Eat

Living in Hawaii gives one the opportunity to sample new kinds of food not usually available on the mainland. Given that 60% of the state is Asian, primarily Japanese, there is tons of Asian food. There is also lots of traditional Hawaiian food, most of which is very good.

Some of it, however, is revolting. Do you know about poi? Poi is made by digging up the root of a taro plant. The root looks sort of like jicama or a coconut--it's brownish and dirty and covered with what looks like brown 1970s-era grass wallpaper.

You peel off this brown, furry stuff and the inside is purplish. You smash it up, and then you let it "ferment." "Ferment," in this case, is a euphemism for "rot." Poi is rotten taro root. It even comes in flavors. You can get it in extra-rotten or only a little rotten. You can eat it as thick, gloppy, rotten stuff, or you can add water and make it runny, watery, vile stuff.

Another, even more evil concoction, is a Filipino delicacy, often sold by street vendors, called "balut." Balut is a fertilized duck egg. That is, there is a tiny, baby duck inside this egg. It dies. Then it sits on a shelf for about 17 days. It gets rotten and molded and disgusting. Then you buy it from a street vendor and eat it. Yum!!