wrote:

On Thu, 08 May 2008 11:48:39 -0500, Conan The Librarian
wrote:

Nope, it wasn't smoked at all.

Well, that's why I asked about _cold_ smoked (or cured) - if you're not
familiar with it, it's markedly different that hot smoked.

Yep. I'm familiar with the process, as I'm a huge fan of various
smoked meats/fish/etc. I even considered converted an old refrigerator
to a "smokehouse", but that project got set aside some time ago, and now
I just use a Brinkman upright for hot-smoking salmon, ribs, chicken, etc.

I don't know if this was the "traditional" preparation of lomi-lomi

Neither do I...and in fact, don't know if it is "traditional," something
recently adapted, or even just something recently "invented"

, but it was in a little dive on Kauai (the Aloha Cafe, IIRC), so I don't have
any reason to doubt that it was authentic.

I know very little about true "native" Hawaiian food: I don't like poi,
but do like much of the other stiuff I've tried, and I understand, but
don't _know_, that much of what is now considered "Hawaiian" food is
late 19th-to-20th century introduction/adaptation from the US mainland,
Japan, other islands, etc. That's about it, so I have no basis on which
to comment "authentic." I'd wonder how/why Hawaiians got their
hands on salmon for it to be a typical "traditional" dish of any long
standing, but ???

Poor choice of words on my part. My comment was simply intended to
note that while you mentioned that the lomi-lomi you had eaten was made
with smoked salmon, the stuff I had was definitely not smoked, and I had
no reason to believe it was any less "authentic" than the version you
had eaten. And it was definitely similar to ceviche.

I'd expect the use of salmon is probably linked to the Japanese
influence you mention above. I know that some of the high-end
restaurants we ate at featured menus that were heavily-influenced by
Japanese cuisine.


Chuck Vance