lū'au

Luau comes from Hawaiian lūʻau, originally the name of the young leaves of the taro plant (kalo in Hawaiian). Taro — Colocasia esculenta — is the most sacred plant in Hawaiian cosmology: the kalo plant is considered a sibling of the first Hawaiian people, born from the same ancestral union, making taro not simply a food crop but a genealogical relative. The lūʻau leaves were braised with coconut cream to make a dish called laulau, or stuffed with fish or pork and wrapped in ti leaves to cook in an imu (underground oven). The word for the leaf became associated with the feast at which such leaves were served, and by the mid-nineteenth century 'luau' was documented in English as the name for the traditional Hawaiian feast — the gathering around the imu, the communal eating of kālua pig, poi, lomi salmon, and lūʻau dishes.

King Kamehameha III is credited with hosting the first large-scale luau in 1847, a celebration of his daughter's first birthday. Earlier Hawaiian gatherings around the imu were typically called ʻahaʻaina (feast gathering), and the shift to 'luau' as the standard term for such events happened gradually through the nineteenth century. The distinction between ʻahaʻaina and luau is one of those linguistic shifts where the part (a specific dish made with taro leaves) comes to name the whole (the feast at which that dish was served), until the part-name takes over entirely. By the time tourism reached Hawaii, 'luau' was the fixed term, and visiting journalists and travel writers adopted it enthusiastically.

The commercial luau emerged as a tourism staple in the twentieth century, offering visitors the experience of a Hawaiian feast in a form designed for non-Hawaiian palates and entertainment expectations. The fireknife dance (actually a Samoan tradition introduced by Samoan performers), the pig roasted in an imu (authentic), the hula show (often authentic), and the buffet of Hawaiian foods (ranging from authentic to approximate) became the standard package. The word 'luau' moved into mainland American English as a generic term for any outdoor party with a tropical theme — 'luau party' decorations available at Party City include leis, plastic palm trees, and tikis, none of which has any specific relationship to the taro-leaf dish that gave the event its name.

The food chain that connects lūʻau to the modern luau is itself a story about what happens to indigenous subsistence culture when it becomes performance. The kalo plant requires flooded paddies (lo'i kalo), careful cultivation, and a deep knowledge of taro varieties and their uses — there are hundreds of named Hawaiian varieties, each with specific culinary and cultural properties. The lūʻau dish requires knowing how to prepare taro leaves so they don't cause the throat-irritating calcium oxalate crystals to remain active. This knowledge — agricultural, botanical, culinary — was part of what was transmitted at a traditional Hawaiian feast. The modern tourism luau serves baked taro leaves from a catering kitchen. The knowledge of why and how is not on the menu.