KAILUA-KONA — How do you prepare your Thanksgiving turkey?
Maybe you roast it or smoke it. Perhaps you dip your bird in a deep fryer. Or do you let it simmer for hours in a crock-pot? There’s no wrong way to do it, but there are a few methods that are particularly unique.
Chantal Chung employs such a method every year at Maona Community Garden in South Kona, where her holiday tradition is to pay respect to Native Hawaiian cooking by dropping her turkey, and around 50 others, into the ground then covering them all with a big mound of dirt.
That description is more than a little reductive, as it isn’t magic that produced upward of 1,000 pounds of perfectly cooked meat after the volunteer and project manager at the garden excavated a half-ton of holiday goodness around 8 this morning.
Rather, it was the hot stone of the imu, an underground oven commonly used in Hawaii and throughout the Pacific for centuries, that was responsible for the feat. Think of it as kind of a Thanksgiving on the rocks.
“The stone retains the heat, so it’s almost like cooking with indirect heat,” Chung said. “It’s somewhere between pressure cooking and steaming.”
The work that goes into preparing the imu is intensive and an all-day process for Chung and a handful of other volunteers.
It begins with the digging of a pit. Maona Community Garden’s imu pit is located off a short trail behind the entrance, in a clearing encircled by banana and papaya trees — a sea of tangled, towering green stretching off behind them in every direction.
After that, kindling is set and wood from the kiawe tree is placed in a teepee fashion and covered by lava stones. It is subsequently lit and burns for around five hours, or until “it tells us it’s ready,” Chung explained.
The stone adequately heated, the fire begins to fade. That’s when Chung and her helpers line the rock with a layer of banana leaf and stump followed by a layer of ti leaf. The meat is then placed atop the rocks and covered by another layer of banana and ti leaf. Finally, they lay a tarp and a cover over everything and seal the pit’s edges with soil, trapping in the heat for between 12-14 hours.
It isn’t just meat that goes into the imu, and the meat that goes in varies as much as the people who pledge donations in exchange for the convenience and authentic, smoky kiawe flavor of a dinner done underground-style.
Ham goes in. Pork butt joins the party. Yep, chicken is invited, too. And this year, along with an army of turkeys, they’ll all mingle with a whole side of teriyaki moose. Hawaii Ulu Producers Cooperative also donated 200 pounds of ulu for the occasion, most of which is sitting on dinner tables across West Hawaii as you read these words.
As to how the imu can adequately cook, yet not overcook, various portions of various proteins and produce all in the same space at the same temperature, Chung said the explanation is pretty simple.
“We slip nature a $20,” she said, and laughed. “Think of it this way — it’s a lot like a massive crock-pot.”
The purpose
If you didn’t before, now you know the how of the imu. But just as important in this case is the why. The answers are pretty simple — history and charity.
Maona Community Garden runs on the energy of its volunteers. It doesn’t exist to make money and has been plagued over the last several months by a number of food and equipment thefts. Many of the garden’s volunteers don’t just live in Hawaii, but have ancestral roots here stretching back generations.
“It’s our main fundraiser for the year, and it’s to promote a traditional practice for our children,” Chung said. “So the more people who participate and learn it, we hope they go off and do it on their own.”
The suggested donation per person is $20, and with a 50-slot capacity, that made this year’s at least a $1,000 Thanksgiving imu. Those who take part are free to give more or donate equipment or other needed items.
Only half of the money raised will stay with the garden. Every time they employ an imu — which since last year is four times annually on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas — the garden partners with a school or a nonprofit and includes one of their causes.
This year, the garden will split profits with the eighth-grade class at West Hawaii Explorations Academy, who are raising money for a journey east to explore American history in some of the country’s most iconic cities.
Thad Coffin, who runs a company called Canopy Care that offers several free services to the garden, brought his turkey to the imu Wednesday. His daughter is headed to New York and Boston and the like as part of the WHEA trip this May.
Dernie Waikiki, who grew up on Maui, brought her holiday feast to the imu for the second time after stumbling across information about the Native Hawaiian cookout/fundraiser on her Facebook feed a little before Easter this year.
“I never want to bake a turkey again,” she said with a laugh.
Olga Savic, a volunteer and gardener at Maona Community Garden, said she brought her tray of chicken thighs not only to help raise money, but because the end product is guaranteed soft and juicy every time.
“The kids love it,” Savic said. “And I find it fascinating — cooking in the ground.”
Another benefit of the imu method, Chung said, is it’s a low carbon footprint practice. It doesn’t employ fossil fuels, and it creates biochar for the plants. The foil pans and wrap are the only waste produced, but Chung says she has some ideas on how to change that in the future.
Today though, she’s just going to enjoy meats of her labor.
Those who wish to participate in the next community imu or simply donate to the garden may do so by way of an email sent to maonacommunitygarden@gmail.com or by visiting the garden’s Facebook page. For video of the garden’s imu pit and a description of the process visit West Hawaii Today at https://www.facebook.com/westhawaiitoday.