Kalua Pua'a

!WARNING!
THIS BLOG CONTAINS
GRAPHIC ANIMAL CONTENT
AND IS NOT FOR:
ANIMAL LOVERS

VEGETARIANS

or

SQUEAMISH PEOPLE

On Friday, we went over to the Akhay Family's house to help bro. Frank Akhay, and his father-in-law, roast the Kalua Pua'a (or "pig" for all you HAOLES ;o)) in the imu.

When we got there, Moana's father already had a fire going.
He made the fire with Keawe wood, and piled river rocks all around it, like a teepee. Then he put newspaper in the rocks, and lit it with a blow torch.
Some of the rocks were popping because they were wet out of the river bed!

The Fire

Keawe wood ("kay-ah-vay") is the best wood to use because it is very hard and burns slowly.

He also cut banana tree leaves and ti leaves. Banana leaves to cover the hot rocks, and ti leaves to cover the pua'a.

Banana Tree Leaves

Moana's papa cutting the Ti leaves

Here's Manu breaking up the banana tree stump to cover the hot rocks.
(look at those big Samoan feet!)

Here's Nathan helping put a piece of the banana tree stump in the pile

Then THE PIG ARRIVED!!!
Here come the graphic pictures:

Here's Matt & Frank carrying a cooler with one of the pigs in it.

Natalie found the pig's head in a bucket and came to me and said,
"Mommy! The piggy is in the bucket!"

HAHA! I think I probably turned my kids into vegetarians!!

They killed two pigs earlier that day, so they were already cleaned and skinned.

Piggy #1

Piggy #2

All that was left to do was to cut them into pieces to put them in a basket to go into the imu.
Ready to be Salted

After the pua'a was cut up, we put it back into the cooler and waited for Moana's brother, Tony, to come with the food that he had to put in the imu.
You can put anything you want cooked, in the imu with the pig.

While we were waiting for Tony to get there, we all sat around to "Talk Story", as the Hawaiians say ;o)
The Haole way to say "Talk Story" is "chit-chat".

Here we are all talking story

While we talked story, the kids made s'mores with Frank's oldest son Cody, using a piece of hot keawe wood from the imu.

They used peanut butter cups instead of chocolate.

Uh oh, fire's not hot enough... Break out the blow torch!!!!
Moana's mom explained to me that in the Philippines, they used to use the blow torch to burn the hair off of the dogs to eat them.
!!!GROSS!!!

Uh oh... Natalie got dirty
Thanks Uncle Tafu for cleaning her off :o)

Here's Cody moving some of the hot rocks around

HOT Fire!

Here's Papa with the wet sackcloth to put over the imu

Tony was almost there, so they took the pork out of the cooler and salted it to get it ready for the imu.

All of the pig meat

Look at all of the kids on the trampoline!!!

NOW THE MOMENT WE'D ALL BEEN WAITING FOR...

First, the pieces of the banana tree stump went on top of the hot rocks...

...then, they put the banana leaves over that:
(look at it starting to steam)



Then, the Ti leaves went on top of the banana leaves:

The PIG goes on top of the ti leaves:
...in the imu!
Matt even helped!
do you see Tafu putting in Tony's food?

So, the FOOD IS IN!!
Now it's time to cover it up...
First, with the wet sackcloth:

After the sackcloth, they covered it with some kind of canvas:


...and then, lastly, with a plastic tarp-like cover:

After it was all covered up, they buried the edges to seal in the moisture:

ALLLLL DONE!
Whew!
That looked like hard work ;o)

From left to right:
Braddah (Wayne) Brown, Moana's dad (i forgot his name!), Tafu, Frank, & Cody
From left to right:
Matt, Braddah Brown, Tafu, Frank, & Cody

I liked to see it start bubbling up once the moisture was all sealed in!
Funny Story:
Do you see the upside-down empty water bottle sticking out of the dirt?
Bro. Brown's stuck it in the dirt and called it a "temperature knob" for controlling the temperature of the fire! LOL! He is a funny guy!
If you look close, you can see the condensation forming on the inside.
STEAM THAT PUA'A!

After all the work was done, Moana was kind enough to feed all of us dinner!
Beef Stew
Chili & Rice
Shoyu Chicken
(all local favorites)
They're our favorites too!

Then we went home.

6:00 AM THE NEXT MORNING.....

When that alarm went off at 5:30, I'll be honest... I had second thoughts...
But there's NO WAY I'm gonna miss an opportunity to see something like this.
So Matt sayed home with the kids, and I went back over to the Akhay's house.

6:00 a.m. sharp! I found Braddah Brown and Frank, waiting for Moana's dad to take out da pig.

It wasn't all puffed up like it was when we put it in:
(Braddah Brown said he turned it down to a simmer. LOL!)


Here they are uncovering the edges of the plastic cover:

then they removed it...

That uncovered the canvas, which they removed.....

Followed by the sackcloths, which were also removed....

Then the Ti leaves were removed......

...which uncovered.....

THE COOKED PIG!!!
3 Trays of it!
Here's Moana's Dad & Bro. Brown carrying the hot pig to the table to be shredded.
Manu is checking to see if it's pig, or DOG! LOL!

They moved the pig to this area, where they pulled the bones out of it (see manu).
The meat was so tender, that it literally FELL OFF the bones!!!
YUMMMMM!!!

Then we shredded it with tongs....
(Yes, I helped!)
...and put it in Ziploc bags to be frozen for the Luau in June.

WHO'S LUAU, YOU ASK????
Why, none other than....

FARA-MONE' AKHAY
She is graduating TOMORROW
(yes, i'm going, so I'll blog that too...)
and is having a Luau in the end of June to wish her luck as she leaves her island home and moves to the mainland to go to college at BYU-Provo!!