GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Standing in a cloud of steam, Kai Hovey monitors an imu built at Kailua High School as a fund-raiser for the school's marine science programs. Customers pay $10 a tray for overnight space in the imu. The foil packages are filled with items such as turkeys, pork butts and sweet potatoes. Hovey graduated last year but comes back to campus to help with the imu.
Steam bath
At Kailua High School, an
imu project helps students
raise funds and study culture
It's a gray, muddy day in Kailua. Rainy, dismal. But the smell in the air is incredible -- it's the scent of promise, of a luau tonight.
Into the imu
Reserve your space in the Kailua High School imu:Drop off: 3:30 to 5 p.m. May 16
Pick up: 8 to 9 a.m. May 17
Cost: $10 per aluminum tray, up to 13 inches by 21 inches. Make checks payable to Kailua High School and send to school, attention Todd Hendricks, 451 Ulumanu Drive, Kailua 96734, by Monday. Include phone number.
Call: 299-5347
They've pulled back the tarp covering the imu to reveal a steaming mass of silver -- foil-wrapped trays filled with perfectly cooked hunks of pork, whole turkeys, fork-tender sweet potatoes.
It's imu day at Kailua High School, one of those few times a year when 10 bucks buys space for a tray of food to be steamed away in the ancient manner, beneath layers of banana fronds.
But this isn't only about the food.
Students have spent the night here, tending the imu. They've also chopped banana stumps, stirred hot rocks, lifted and carried.
"What has come out of our program is a great respect for the dignity of work of all kinds -- physical, mental, esoteric, all of that," says chemistry teacher Emil Wolfgramm.
Life skills. But the imu bolsters standard learning as well, Wolfgramm says. "We have found that if we give them a living skill that they need to do with their bodies and hands, they will find their way to fundamentals -- academic fundamentals."
Kailua's imu endeavors began in 1996 with a small smoking mound -- "just like a wheelbarrow, that size," Wolfgramm says.
At first they buried five or 10 trays of food at a time, says marine science teacher Todd Hendricks. "Then we went to 20, then we went to 50, then we started advertising."
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Koa Lyu winces and turns away from the heat of the open imu as he tends the fire and hot stones. Chimneys made of open-ended barrels funnel air to the fire and help direct the heat throughout the imu.
Last Thanksgiving, they tucked nearly 200 trays under the banana fronds.
The imu has become a quarterly project overseen by Wolfgramm and Hendricks to raise money for various marine projects at the high school. Wolfgramm is a founder of the campus Ho'olokahi Polynesian Voyaging Society; Hendricks is program coordinator for the Marine Science, Boating and Voyaging Program.
The imu crew has a semi-permanent site in a far corner of the athletic field. Imu dates vary, but there's always one at Thanksgiving, popular with those who want kalua turkeys, and one in May, targeted at those who want kalua pork for graduation luaus. The grad-season imu will be fired up next week, with drop-off May 16 and pick-up the following day.
Students sign up for the marine programs out of interests in boating, fishing and Polynesian navigation, Wolfgramm says. Many go on to become harbor masters or to run charter boats.
"The imu is the land support," he says, providing not just fund-raising, but a chance to expand on the cultural aspects of the programs.
The last imu, in February, was junior Shamara Brown's fifth. She hopes to take up Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii, and says the imu is one way of forging a connection with her roots.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kailua High School teacher Janis Bush, right, hands her tray of food for the imu to students Chasity Apana, left, Moke Tupua and Scott Margenan.
"You know how they say the language is dying? Cultural activities are dying, too," she says. "This is important because as you grow older you want to teach your kids these things. Keep the Hawaiian alive."
Building of the imu begins just after school lets out on a drizzly day in February. Paper and kindling wood come first, followed by larger pieces of kiawe, then lava rock. The fire is lit.
Wolfgramm says lava rocks are best for earth ovens because the cavities within them help absorb heat. He launches into a discussion of infrared heat and something called blackbody radiation, the bottom line of which seems to be that the rocks have pukas; pukas are good.
Once the fire has been at work for awhile, a layer of chain-link fencing is added, topped with smashed banana stumps, more fencing, more rocks, more stumps. It's the stumps that provide the fragrant steam that will infuse the imu foods with flavor.
A line forms to pass the foil-wrapped bundles of food from the check-in tables to the imu. They're layered five rows deep, then covered with banana fronds, then wet burlap bags and a well-soaked canvas tent. Everything's finally sealed in with a blue plastic tarp, leaving the imu looking like a giant blue bubble, smoldering in the growing drizzle.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Emil Wolfgramm, who supervises the Kailua High School imu, learned the art in his native Tonga, where the earth oven is called an umu. His grandfather built umus in limestone boxes surrounded by sand, for carrying on sailboats.
The crew of volunteers will stay all night. Every 20 or 30 minutes, Wolfgramm says, someone will check the mound for leaking steam. "If we lose our steam, we are going to burn our food."
The imu is fueled by heat radiating off rocks that reach 1,425 degrees, gauged by a temperature probe borrowed from University of Hawaii volcanology researchers.
The cooking action, though, is the moisture in those banana stumps. "We're actually cooking with super-heated steam," Wolfgramm says.
Early the next morning, the tarp is lifted and the imu is opened. The trays of food are carried off by their rightful owners. Experienced imu-ites have packed their trays full and will freeze some of the meat to tide them over until next time.
Later, when the fire burns out, the crew will be left with rocks and burlap that can be recycled, and some new products as well. The burnt kiawe chunks make "beautiful charcoal," Wolfgramm says, and the ashes go into the school's garden.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
A long stick called an akau'u is used to push the hot rocks, creating more even heat across the imu. The temperature of the rocks will reach more than 1,000 degrees.
It's a tidy way to wrap up a program that depends on community support and volunteer labor. Donations run from wood and lava rock to burlap bags, two old bathtubs (for soaking the burlap), even use of a backhoe used to prepare the site for each imu session. Banana farmers let the kids come and harvest stumps and fronds.
All the support, Wolfgramm says, proves the project's value to the community, but he considers it an even greater mark of success that so many students come back to help after graduation.
"They go on to college, to focus their lives, get jobs. But when we call for help, they come. They're here. They never forget where they come from. So we know we're hitting them at the core."
Kai Hovey has been working the imus for five years. Although he graduated last year, he comes back each time to help.
He'd be the captain of the crew if this crew had formal titles; as it is, he simply moves into position for each stage of the process, leading by way of his actions.
What does he get out of it? Hovey says he's learned a survival skill that guarantees he'll always be able to cook his food.
"If the whole world goes broke, at least we have this."
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Steam immediately rises from the pit as crushed banana stumps are placed atop the hot imu stones. It is the super-hot steam that cooks the food that will be left in the imu overnight.
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How to pack your
"Anything you can put in an oven you can cook in an imu better," imu supervisor Emil Wolfgramm says.
tray for the imuWell, OK, not a souffle. But a wide range of other foods emerge from the imu moist and infused with smoky flavor.
Guidelines
What to pack: Pork butt, whole turkeys, chicken parts or corned beef. Also, pumpkins or squash, sliced cabbage, carrots, potatoes of any kind, luau leaves.How to prepare: Everything should be thawed. Rub meats with Hawaiian salt. Poke a few holes in potatoes. Cut pumpkins into sections.
The tray: Use a disposable aluminum pan, up to 13- by-21 inches. Seal the top with foil. Food can mound above the sides of the pan, but be sure it's all secure. Some people use sturdier metal roasting pans with lids.
Pick-up tips: Bring a large cardboard box to carry your hot tray and towels or newspaper to protect your car. The food releases lots of juice. Some people bring containers to pour the juice into, for neater transport.
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