BY COLLEEN THOMPSON POKÉ
raw fish traditions, adding soy sauce and
sesame oil.
It was in the 1970s that poké began to
rise in popularity. This coincided with
ahi tuna becoming more readily available
as it made its way out of Hawaiian home
kitchens and onto mainstream menus. In
its “Brief History of Poké in Hawaii,” the
Hawaiian Ocean Project states that legend-ary
Hawaiian chef and restaurateur Sam
Choy almost single-handedly brought poké
bowls to the masses. In 1991 he launched
his first poké contest, featuring recipes from
all over Hawaii. The contest encouraged
chefs to be creative and inventive with their
creations.
Soon after, the dish journeyed to the
mainland with Hawaii’s multicultural influ-ences
naturally mixing in. Poké bowls are
still very much part of the Hawaiian culture
and are often brought along to family gath-erings.
Today, Hawaiians eat limu-seasoned
poké, usually called Hawaiian or limu poké,
but ahi shoyu poké, which is a mix of tuna,
soy sauce, sesame oil, green onions and
chili, has become more popular.
Poké’s appeal is that it’s infinitely cus-tomizable
and can be engineered to suit
almost any diet from high-protein to
gluten-free. In its food and entertainment
highlights, the Hawaiian Airlines website
says that at any poké counter in the Aloha
state today, you’ll find not just ahi limu
(seaweed) and spicy ahi poké, but kim-chee,
shrimp, furikake, salmon, miso, tako
(octopus), pipikaula (dried beef) and even
bacalao poké made with Portuguese dried
salt cod.
71
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
o