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The Kalo (Taro) can be used in a varieties of ways such as foods, medicines, and all sorts of incredible things. The Kalo was one of the most useful plants in Hawaiian History.
The stem of the raw lau (leafs) was rubbed on insect bites to relieve the pain and to stop the pain from swelling. Raw rootstock was rubbed on wounds to stop the blood from bleeding. Mashed poi (cooked taro corm, pounded and made thin with water) was used as a poultice or a material to stop the pain from getting more severe sores.
You can use taro for paste. Don't you think taro would be better than elmer's glue? Poi was used as paste to glue pieces of kapa (pounded bark used to make clothes) together. Grated raw corm was used for food for the fish so the fish would end up in their trap. Did you know that?
Juice from the poni (purple) variety produced a rich red dye used for dyes. You can use Taro for chips, breads, and corm was used to make pigs fat. Taro was a starchy food for the Hawaiians. You can cook the taro in many different ways, you can cook it by underground stoves like how the Hawaiians did in the olden days or cook it in pans and heat it by a stove the new way? But did you know you can also cook it in the rice cooker?
The taro was cooked in an imu
(underground oven). It was a very big hole dug in the
ground. The Hawaiians would use `opihi shells to help peel
off the taro's skin when the taro came out of the imu.
Usually the taro would be made into poi. One man would sit
on a long hollow board so that he would be able to pound the
taro pieces on the board with a poi pounder.The same man
would wet the bottom of the poi pounder with water as he
pounds the taro. He did this so that the taro wouldn't stick
to his special tool (poi pounder) This is a picture of a poi
pounder that the ancient Hawaiians used. Since we don't make our own poi
anymore this is a picture of a bag of poi that we
buy at the market.
