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In The Garden
Friday, January 28, 2000
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Ralph Lee tends his taro patch.
Ralph Lee is something of a celebrity at the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City, and it's not only because movie star Jason Scott Lee is his grandnephew. The 76-year- old volunteer gardener is famous here for his taro know-how -- from growing the leafy vegetable plant, to making poi, to the proper ways to store the root staple. Patching together
taro know-how"When people see all the different types of taro growing on dry land, they just can't believe it," says Lee, as he shows off four rows of immaculate taro patches. "And, when people taste my poi, especially if they never tasted fresh poi before, they can't believe how good it tastes."
Lee will share his knowledge and homemade poi Feb. 5 at the Urban Garden Center monthly open house. He will discuss methods to grow, store and cook taro, and show examples of a varieties of taro. The free class will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
"Basically I got tired of drinking my poi," says Lee, explaining why he picked taro cultivation above other gardening duties at the University-of-Hawaii sponsored garden. "I didn't like the poi I got from the stores. It didn't taste fresh, not compared to what I used to get growing up. The poi in the restaurant was too watered down."
GROW YOUR OWN
What: "Taro for the Home Garden," by Ralph Lee
What he knows about taro, he learned mostly by reading, experimenting in the garden and watching other gardeners. "I made a lot of mistakes, that's how I learned. But growing anything, I always say, takes one-hundred-and-ten percent love," he says.
And he loves fish and poi. Being a seasoned fisherman with his own boat, Lee could eat as much fish as he wanted. But it wasn't until he began volunteering at the garden about five years ago that he finally could get his fill of fresh poi. Lee likes to eat kulolo, too, and he taught himself to make the sweet taro desert.
Lee's fondness for Hawaiian food developed when he was a child growing up on Pua Lane in Palama. He played with children of a Hawaiian family across the street, and he practically lived at their house -- enjoying their roast pig, fish and poi.
"I used to get scolding all the time. My mother scolded me in Chinese. 'Oh, you not Chinese boy, you kanaka boy.' Because I was always over there. I guess I liked their food better."
Lee knew Hawaiian food well although he never learned from his neighbors how to grow taro or make poi. But bits of his childhood memory have served him well in his poi-making experiments.
"If you watch how the Hawaiians do it, they don't pound the poi. It may be called poi pounding, but that's not what they do. They mash it, except maybe at the end they punch it down a few times."
Lee also remembers his Palama neighborhood full of taro growing in rich, black mud. A limited water supply and poor soil at the Pearl City garden dictates different growing methods, but that hasn't lessened the quality or quantity of Lee's harvests.
"Nothing is absolute. There is not just one way to grow it. I can tell you exactly how I do it, but you have to do it your way that's best for your garden. In your own locale and your conditions, you have to make adjustments"
Lee also has made adjustments in the kitchen. He used Chinese taro and other varieties to make poi and kulolo, and discovered that the results are just as tasty as the taro varieties traditionally used for these foods.
His other kitchen discoveries include better ways to store taro to keep its fresh taste. Taro, raw or cooked, should not be stored in the refrigerator, Lee says. It is best kept in a cooler with a layer of ice on the bottom. Lee uses bags of dry ice. Raw taro can be kept up to five days this way and still retain its fresh, sweet taste.
If you want to make poi with taro, it's best to cook the taro and turn it into poi the same day. Poi made the next day, after the cooked taro was kept in the refrigerator overnight, isn't as tasty. The texture of the poi will be grainier and the color will be grayer.
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
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