HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND: Battling Those Weed Trees June 25, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Hawaii Travel, Updates , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Battling Those Weed Trees
A few months ago, I wrote about a tree that was brought here from Brazil
and that has gone terribly wild. It’s officially psidium cattleianum, but commonly called “strawberry guava”or waiawi (”vy-vee”), and it’s extraordinarily invasive: seeds from the fruit sprout easily wherever they fall, and are spread by birds and pigs; if the tree is cut down, it quickly regenerates from stumps and fallen branches, ultimately forming a dense thicket in which nothing else grows.
Researchers estimate that waiawi is now entrenched in more than 800,000 acres on the Big Island, and though its range may ultimately be limited by drier microclimates and higher alititudes, it is still in-filling where it’s already established, especially in Hamakua and Puna, where it squeezes out practically everything else, especially native and endemic species. It also draws fruit-flies, expanding their range, which frustrates efforts to cultivate more desireable fruit.
To fight this weed tree, the Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources, the Hawaii Dept. of Agrictulture, and the Forest Service of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture propose to introduce a Brazilian insect called tectococcus ovatus,which severely weakens – but doesn’t kill – waiawi. It tunnels into the leaves, forcing the tree to make “galls” that contain the pest, instead of making new leaves. This is expected to slow the spread of waiwai, allowing people more time to cut thickets down and keep them down. The insect has no wings, and can move to adjacent trees only on the breeze; moreover, tests prove that it can live only on strawberry guava and on no other plant; so the release of this biological control agent is considered very safe.
Waiawi does have some practical uses. The fresh fruit, being in the guava family, are easily made into tasty jams and jellies; the wood, like other fruit-woods, makes an excellent smoke for curing meat and fish; and the trunks – if thick and straight enough – can turned into hardwood poles. So there is a small vocal contingent here, mainly in Puna, that objects to introducing tectococcus, in the name of “saving” the waiawi.
But, the USDA counters this misguided effort by pointing out that, if anyone actually wants to cultivate waiawi, or keep wild stands from being infected, they can do what farmers do for any other orchard crop: i.e., protect it with ordinary (preferably organic) insecticidal spray.
There is another invasive weed tree here that was introduced about the same time as waiawi; but it is currently being decimated without human intervention. The rose-apple (syzygium jambos), though not quite as aggressive as waiawi, tends to spread out more, and to form dark “tree-tunnel” arches over back-country roads. The fruit is rather dry: its “rose” being more of a scent than a flavor.
But rose apple trees are being attacked by a “rust fungus” disease that kills new growth and thereby starves the tree of energy. In a couple of years, many stands of rose apple will be bare and dead – and likely will be overtaken by waiawi, which is often found in the same areas.
There is a small but real danger that this rust could spread to other trees in the same (myrtle) family. The worst-case scenario would be a jump to native ohia. So Hawaii forest managers are urging the state to restrict new imports of nursery trees and other plant material that can harbor the rust. For more information about the rust,
click here.
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – The First Fruits of Summer June 18, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Hawaii Travel , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
The First Fruits of Summer
Subtropical Hawaii does have seasons; and in the late Spring and early Summer, two of our best fruits come ripe: lychee, from China, and mango from the Indian subcontinent.
Anyone who patronized Chinese restaurants in bygone days may remember eating sweet, dried “litchi nuts,” which are to fresh lychee as raisins are to grapes, or prunes to plums. Lychee are almost never found in the wild: they’re raised in orchards of distinctive small trees with wavy, light-green leaves, that require nurturing to produce quality fruits in quantity.
Ripe lychee are about the size of golf balls, with red, rough-textured skin that you peel off by hand. The translucent white fruit tastes like an especially juicy grape. At about twenty to the pound, you can expect to pay three dollars for a pound of lychee. The original Chinese varieties had large seeds; but twentieth-century agronomists developed varieties with small, “shriveled” seeds, that enable each fruit to have more meat; so you may see those labeled “small seed,” in farmers’ market stalls, and they may be priced a bit higher. Like cherries, canned lychee retain almost all of the fresh fruit’s flavor; so if you can’t get to Hawaii during lychee season, buy a can from the “Asian” section of Mainland supermarkets.
Around this time of year, too, local farmers offer a related fruit called longon. Smaller than lychee, and with a stiff, brown skin, the fruit is much sweeter, though in a cloying sort of way; some people construe it as being rather more aromatic than flavorful. Later in the year, another relative, called rambutan, will come ripe: it has a “hairy” skin, and a taste similar to lychee though not as juicy. Rambutan also has a longer season and a longer shelf-life, so it has become extremely popular in local orchards.
The smallest mangoes are the so-called “common” variety, and they are easily spotted from the roadside. The tree is long-lived and enormous: 80 feet or higher, with 30-foot spreads, dark leaves tinged with red, and an abundance of small fruit that depend from long stems. Saplings can sprout from fallen fruit, but in general, wherever you see a mature tree now, there is or was a settlement there.
Mangoes are related – believe it or not – to poison ivy and poison oak. If you have never eaten one before, you’ll quickly discover if you are hyper-sensitive or allergic to them: you may develop a swarm of (harmless) red welts around your lips that local folks call “mango mouth.” With most people, however, this does not happen.
Common mangoes can and do ripen into sweet, juicy delights, but a few varieties have a taste reminiscent of turpentine. The trees being so big, common mangoes are also hard to pick – you need a long pole with a net or basket on the end – and may well have been stung by fruit-flies before you can even get to them. So, many are picked before they’re ripe and turned into chutney, or prepared as savory treats: local recipes for “green” mango famously include marinating the slices in soy sauce (shoyu).
It’s the cultivated mangoes that are the most consistently sweet, and while there are, technically, hundreds of varieties, they fall into just a few general categories that you’ll find in local farmers’ markets right now.
Closest to “common” in size and taste, with the same greenish skin color, are the slightly elongated “cigar” mangoes. Several varieties are larger and longer still, but have a distinctive yellow-orange skin, much like the color of the fruit itself. (In other countries, such as The Philippines, these are the mangoes that are commercially dried and packaged; and except for the absence of juice, dried mangoes taste almost exactly like fresh mangoes.) The largest mangoes are the Hayden variety, which can grow big enough for two people to share. Expect to pay about fifty cents for a common or cigar mango; a dollar apiece for the larger yellow type, and three or four dollars for a giant Hayden.
All mangoes have large, flat seeds; here’s how to get the most meat out of them: Slice the fruit the “long” way, close to either side of the seed, to yield two cupped-hand-shaped halves. Set those halves aside and peel the strip of rind from around the seed; slice off whatever meat you can, into a bowl, and then (as local folks do) suck the rest of the meat from the edges of the seed before discarding it. Now, for each of the two halves, make tic-tac-toe on the flat side with a knife, but don’t pierce through to the skin. Turn the half-mango inside-out, and you produce neat chunks of juicy mango that you can peel or slice off, into your bowl.
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – The Naked Truth about the Kona Coffee “Calendar Girls” June 10, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Is That Kona Coffee Really from Kona?
Between about 800 and 1,500 feet mauka of the Kona Coast, a lot of folks have been growing coffee for more than 100 years, and their beans enjoy a reputation for delivering a high quality buzz. But right now, growers in the Kona Coffee Farmers’ Association (KCFA) are buzzing like angry bees: they want the words “Kona coffee” to mean just that.
You may not know this, but if as little as ten percent of the beans in a blend were grown in Kona, it can be labeled and sold as “Kona coffee.” The KCFA wants that designation to be allowed only if 100 percent of the beans are Kona-grown; the label of anything else should prominently include the word “Blend,” and list the actual percentage of Kona beans.
Until recently, most Kona coffee beans got a fairly light “American” style of roasting, giving “Kona coffee” a reputation for being on the weak side. That may be why vendors have been blending it with more robust beans from elsewhere, although that, in turn, has made consumers skeptical of anything labeled “Kona coffee.” In fact, roasting Kona beans in the darker “French” or darkest “Italian” styles cancels any perceived weakness.
Almost anyone in Hawaii can grow coffee . . . as an ornamental: it has shiny dark green leaves and bright red berries. But getting a decent cup-a-joe from a couple of plants is far more work than it’s worth. To oversimplify: the berries have to be picked at just the right stage of ripeness, then dried and roasted with expertise. Coffee-farming is very labor-intensive, which helps to explain why a pound of 100 percent Kona coffee typically sells for more than twice the price of supermarket coffees.
But it’s that “premium” status that truth-in-labeling would help to protect.
Kona was not the first place on the Big Island where coffee was raised as a commercial crop. That was in Ola’a – now called Keaau – in Puna. Some coffee is raised there still, and some comes from up the Hamakua coast near Honokaa. But mauka Kona is the Big Island’s major microclimate for coffee. And the KCFA is part of a worldwide movement to ensure the veracity of “local” labeling. “Champagne” has to come from Éperney, France, and anything resembling it that’s made anywhere else has to be labeled “sparkling wine.” Any cheese with veins of azure mold can be labeled “blue cheese,” but only the dairy farmers of Stilton, England can call it “Stilton.”
To drum up publicity for this campaign, the KCFA has published a 2009 calendar called “The Naked Truth About Kona Coffee.” Inspired by an English stunt (which was celebrated in a movie called “Calendar Girls”), a dozen women who actually farm coffee in Kona posed for its pages – yes, in the nude. Okay, most of them are … “of a certain age.” And by posing with strategically-placed tractors or farm implements, none of them shows much skin. But hey! They’re really naked!
If you want to help them ensure that calling something “Kona coffee” is more than just a marketing gimmick, you might want to hang their calendar on your wall, or – at least – check the fine print on the label of your next bag of “Kona coffee.”
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – More Local Talk June 2, 2008
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
More Local Talk
Here are some more words that you’ll hear on the Big Island. You may or may not want to use them, but you’ll certainly hear them enough, here, to warrant your understanding them. As I said in my earlier blog, what’s known as “pidgin” here is not a true pidgin, linguistically, but it’s what many local folks grew up speaking.
Do you remember the 1970s craze for necklaces, bracelets and charms made from “puka shells?” They were round shells and shell fragments, ranging in size from a shirt-button up to a five-cent piece, with a hole in the center – natural or man-made – through which they were strung. In Hawaiian, a “puka” is a hole that goes all the way through something, like a doughnut hole.
Knowing that, it’s easy to grasp the meaning of “kipuka.” New lava flowing downhill from a vent behaves like water: if it encounters an obstacle, like a hill or a mound that’s higher than the liquid’s surface, it flows around that obstacle. If there are trees or shrubs or ferns or houses on that mound, they will survive, while everything around them gets burned and covered with fresh lava. So, that isolated patch of old growth, surrounded by bare rock, is known as a “kipuka.” You can see several kipukas at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and along Highway 11 from Volcano, through Ka’u and South Kona.
There is another kind of hole, though: a “lua,” which is a hole that doesn’t go all the way through, like a hole in the ground. “Kalua” pig is so called because it’s roasted in a just such a hole (the specific word for that underground oven, though, is “imu”). And because an ordinary hole in the ground might serve as a latrine, “lua” is the local slang for toilet.
Many cultures have myths about tricksters: some are animals, some are people, but they are generally beloved, or at least tolerated, for the good they occasionally do, and/or for the delight people take in watching them be rascals. The Hawaiian word for rascal is “kolohe.” It is occasionally used to mean “mischief,” or – rarely – as an adjective meaning “naughty.” But more often it’s a synonym for a sneaky politician or an unscrupulous businessman.
Generically, a “plate lunch” is a take-out meal. But most often it means something served in a three-section paper plate, with a meat course, a scoop of either potato salad or macaroni salad, and “two scoops rice.” The meat in a plate lunch is typically chicken or short ribs cooked or seasoned with teriyaki sauce.
The most intensely caloric of plate lunches doesn’t come in three sections, but on a single plate. It’s the “loco moko” – a hamburger patty or a slice of spam, set atop a lot of rice, with a whole fried egg on top, and beef-stock gravy poured all over it. The origin of the name is obscure:
the first part comes either from the Spanish “loco” (crazy) or simply from “local.” In Hawaiian, “moko” means water in the context of a puddle or a flood; and so – possibly – refers to the gravy inundation. But “moko” also may be a euphemism for “moke” (rhymes with Coke), which is the derogatory term for a Polynesian fellow, and which you should never utter around here.
