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PINEAPPLE, HALA KAHIKI
(Ananas comosus)


Some say Christopher Columbus discovered pineapples growing wild on the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean in 1493. He traded some trinkets for it, probably. The Indians called the fruit "nana". The Spaniards called it "pina" and took it back to Europe where people called it the "fruit of kings." In Europe they are still called "ananas."

In Europe the pineapple became the symbol of hospitality and a luxury available only to the aristocracy. It was so popular in England that a certain nobleman actually rented pineapples for festive occasions. In France, King Louis XIV's passion for pineapple made it royal.

The first written account of pineapple in Hawaii appears in Spanish horticulturalist Don Francisco de Paula Marin's diary in 1813, when he mentions planting pineapples and an orange tree. Hawaiians apparently looked at it as an outsider. They called it, hala kahiki, "screwpine from a foreign land." By the mid-1800s, pineapples had gone wild and were being successfully cultivated as well. In 1863 whalers in Kailua-Kona were being provisioned with pineapple.

That's the usual story. There is another. In Puna, Ka'u and Kona on the Big Island as well as at Kaupo, Maui, wild varieties of pineapple called Wild Kailua have been considered a native plant. The Hawaiians used the fragrant "eyes" (maka) of the pineapple rind for leis and also ate the fruit. Apparently, around 1500, a Spanish vessel was wrecked near Kona and speculation is that it carried pineapple, native plants of the tropical America, for the crew. It is possible that the Wild Kailua pineapple came from that vessel or from other Spanish vessels that found their way to the Islands.

In any case, by 1901, a commercial plantation began operating. That was the year James Dole organized the first of today's modern pineapple companies. He began raising pineapples on a few acres at Wahiawa, Oahu. From 1922 to 1992, much of the island of Lanai, which was then owned by the Dole Corporation, was planted in pineapples, the single largest planting on Earth. (It was replaced by tourism after 1992.)

On Maui the Baldwin family began pineapple operations in 1903. The endeavor continues still as the Maui Land and Pineapple Company. If sugar was King, then pineapple was the Queen of island industry. By 1920, the total exports from Maui amounted to 730,000 cases of fruit.

Smooth Cayenne is the commercial variety now grown in Hawaii for both fresh and processed fruit. It was introduced in Hawaii in 1885 after a "considerable search" for an improved variety.

Another variety of pineapple, popularly called "Sugarloaf," is low in acid. It weighs from 7 to 10 pounds and has cream-colored, sweet flesh and a heady aroma. There is an absence of serration on the leaves of the crown, making it easy to harvest. Sugarloaf makes a good backyard plant, producing several crops throughout the year from the original plant.

Pineapples are a herbaceous perennial plant of the bromeliad family. It got the name from a vague resemblance to the pinecone. The tough rind, which is deep yellow or brown-green, has small hexagonal sections that fit together like a puzzle. Each of these sections is a botanically individual fruit. They merge to form the pineapple. The Chinese name, "Phoenix Pear" refers to the legendary bird that consumes itself by fire and then is renewed from its ashes. This is appropriate because the cactus-like pineapple plant grows from its own crown, the leafy part at the top of the fruit.

The fruit develops from a cluster of tiny lavender flowers on a short stalk growing from the center of the leaves. It is a collective fruit made up of many small fruits. The flowers fuse with the bracts to become fleshy and eventually form a fruit. It takes about six months for a commercial pineapple to mature. In home gardens, it can take up to two years.

The fibrous chewy pineapple core is the original flower stalk. For many locals, it is their favorite part, a carryover, perhaps, of time spent working in the pineapple cannery.

It is interesting to note that, according to one source, hummingbirds are prohibited in Hawaii because they are the main pollinators of pineapples, and pollinated pineapples produce undesirable hard seeds within the fruit.

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THE LAHAINA PALI ROAD

Past Maalaea towards Lahaina is a stretch of pali (cliffs) and curves. In the 1930's, Lahaina's old pali highway was once called "the Amalfi drive of Maui" because it was so curvy. It followed a more ancient roadway along the cliff face.

There is a story of a legendary female robber who lived alongside the ancient pali road in the area of the range of hills called Aalaloloa, which is located between Lahaina to Wailuku after passing Olowalu. It was said that this woman, who was named Kaiaupe, would entice men to lay with her at the very edge of the cliffs and then push them over with her foot (presumably when they were too befuddled to fight back). She succeeded in this so often that the people named this form of seductive mugging "Ka-ai-a-kaiaupe."

It is among the hills of Aalaloloa that the famous kukini, runner, Eleio, met the spirit of the high chiefess Kanikaniaula. The story goes that Eleio could circle the island of Maui three times in one day. One of his jobs was to collect fish or awa from Hana for chief Kakaalaneo, who ruled the island of Maui from his seat in Lahaina.

During one of his runs for awa for a feast, Eleio found the lifeless body of the beautiful high chiefess who had come from the Big Island to marry a low chief of Maui. The runner paused to perform a ceremony of restoration of life. This involved building a bower of sweet-smelling plants and offering the proper prayers and sacrifices. When the spirit of the chiefess approached at the offering of awa, he caught it and wrestled it back into the body from the instep up.

The chiefess was the apparently the first person in legend to be wearing a cape of feathers. The restored chiefess gave the cloak to Eleio as a gift for his chief.

While all of this was going on, the high chief became furious at his runner's unprecedented delay. He ordered an oven prepared to put Eleio to death for his dereliction of duty. The runner, cape tied around his neck, ran directly to the oven and jumped right in. He was pulled from the fire to tell his story. The high chief got the cloak and Kanikaniaula, the chiefess, became his wife. Eleio went on running.

In 1950, a force of 60 workers with more than 100 pieces of equipment and machinery began blasting and grading a new highway around the pali. The new road added a tunnel - the first on a public highway in Hawaii -- and took out many of the curves. "Operation Puka-in-the-Pali" (the fanciful name for the tunnel in progress) was the key project in the new five-and-a-half mile stretch of roadway between Olowalu and McGregor Point near Maalaea. The tunnel was bored through 280 linear feet of tough volcanic rock. Today the two-lane highway skirts the cliff faces for a few miles, gently descending to sea level.

The map name, Honoapiilani Highway, derives from the 15th century. Piilani was a historic chief who ruled the "bays acquired by Piilani" as well as the neighboring islands of Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe, which are all visible from the road. Starting from the south, the famous bays are Honokowai, Honokeana, Honokahua, Honolua, Honokohau and Hononana.

Piilani's reign was famous for peace, stability and prosperity once his conquering days were done. The chief was noted for constructing the West Maui phase of the Alaloa, the long road, to facilitate his constant touring and inspection of his domain. This road was extended by Kihapiilani (the equally benevolent son of Piilani) to encompass East Maui. The whole thing became known as "The King's Highway" in the tourist guidebooks.

The old roadbed, the basic pathway that carried such notables as Mark Twain and Herman Melville to and from Lahaina via horse, is still visible from the modern highway.
(An alternative, probably more modern fantasy/legend, says Piilani was a heavenly maiden who traveled "by rainbow" from Maui to Lanai to visit her lover. Right.)


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STANDARD ENGLISH: You really don't have to shout. I'm right here.
BRADDAH-NICS: No need yell. I stay right ovah heah!


STANDARD ENGLISH: I really do understand what you're saying.
BRADDAH-NICS: You t'ink I don' know? I know!


STANDARD ENGLISH: It doesn't matter whether we stay or go.
BRADDAH-NICS: Go, stay go...no mattah me!

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Local Grinds

Siu Mai

Ingredients:

Instructions:
Remove stems from mushrooms; mince caps. Clean and shell shrimp; mince. Combine all ingredients except siu mai wrappers. Place 1 tablespoon of pork mixture in center of each wrapper. Moisten and gather edges of wrapper around filling, leaving tops open and shaping corners to form petals. Place on a greased rack and steam 20 minutes. Makes about 4 1/2 dozen.

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Haliimaile

Haliimaile still looks like an old plantation camp even though the homes in the camp are privately owned, now, and no longer company worker housing. As a typical self-contained camp, Haliimaile had its own camp store, a theatre (long-gone now), as well as a dispensary (also defunct) and a gym and recreational activities. Parents sent their children to Makawao for schooling and on Sundays, the families attended church in Makawao as well.
 
When Kamehameha III proclaimed that the Makawao area would be the nation's first experiment in private land ownership, he exempted from sale a tract of land that was one of the first used to experiment with growing sugar in the Makawao area. The Haliimaile Plantation was established in 1848 and was operated by William A. McLane. It changed hands and names a number of times in the ensuing years.
 
With the rise of the pineapple industry, Haliimaile became the headquarters of the newly organized Maui Pineapple Company in 1931. The area around the village are planted still in pineapple and in sugar cane.

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