NOTES ON TROPICAL FRUITS. 185 
the wild state, except a rare variety which may be eaten 
raw, and must be baked to render it eatable. This process is 
usually performed in earth-ovens, and the roasted vegetable 
is pounded with great labor into a paste with water. It is 
at first tough and elastic, but at last the persistent attacks of 
the stone-pounder reduce it to a paste not unlike mashed 
potato. This constitutes the pae-ai of the Hawaiians, and 
may be kept for a long time packed in leaves of the cordy- 
line. When mixed with water in different proportions, it 
forms “one-fingered poi,” or “two-fingered poi,” or even 
“three-fingered poi,” accordingly as a mouthful may be taken 
up on one, two, or three fingers. It is preferred slightly 
sour, and to a stranger much resembles in smell and appear- 
‘nce sour bookbinder’s paste. A fastidious man objects to 
the way in which a group. of natives, seated around a cala- 
bash of poi, which an old woman has just stirred up with her 
hand, dip their fingers in the paste and empty them in their 
mouths ; but if he wishes a good meal he had better get over 
such prejudices. Babies a few weeks old are passionately 
ond of poi, and foreigners, who have long lived in poi coun- 
tries, often send for it half round the world. 
The bulb may also be cooked and eaten as a potato, when 
ìt is very palatable, or as a farther process the boiled kalo 
may be cut in slices and fried, or mashed into paste like poi 
and made into cakes while yet fresh, a food as dear to those 
used to it as johnny-cake to a Scotchman. Even the stems 
are boiled as greens, and the tender leaves form a fine dish 
called luau. 
Although kalo is usually grown in ponds or brooks, a very 
good variety grows well on upland rich soil, and many pre- 
fer it to the more common kind. The Hawaiians distinguish 
more than fifty varieties of this plant, and the paste made 
tom them varies in color, from a bluish-gray to a rich pink- 
Color. Poi requires a little salt-fish as a relish. Kalo grows 
in New Zealand, Australia, China, where it is carefully culti- 
vated, India, and elsewhere ; but the Polynesians, especially 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. II. 24 
