In ancient Hawaiʻi, the meal (ka ʻai) is not divided into starter-main-dessert but is organized around a staple food, poi (pounded taro), called the "staff of life." Everything else is ʻiʻo or iʻa, "what is eaten with poi": fish, seaweed (limu), taro leaves, sweet potato. Meals obey the kapu (sacred prohibitions) that once separated men's and women's food and tabooed certain foods. The royal cooking method is the imu, an earth oven of hot stones.

Taro is not just a starch: in Hawaiian tradition it is Hāloa, the mythical elder of humanity. Pounding it on the papa kuʻi ʻai with the pōhaku kuʻi ʻai (stone pestle) is an almost sacred gesture. It is the ingredient that connects every bite to the gods and ancestors.