Food I Could Eat Every Day #3: Kalua Pig

FOOD I COULD EAT EVERY DAY #3: Kalua Pig

I came in contact with this dish for the first time during Kathy and me’s trip to Hawaii last year, and have been seeking it out and attempting to cook it ever since! Seemingly too simple to be worthy of an “every day” badge, it is traditionally made by slow-cooking a pig in an underground oven (“kalua”), wrapped in the leaves of the Hawaiian “ti” plant, and then shredding that puppy to bits! Of course, neither you nor I will likely have an opportunity to have this dish traditionally. For us, we have to just take a slab of pork, and throw it in the oven wrapped in tinfoil with some salt and liquid smoke for many hours, then shredding that puppy to bits! But it’s still good!

Like other entries on this list, there is a “light/heavy” thing going on here. You’d think a giant plate of roast pork might end up on the heavy side, but the salty/smokiness counteracts it, as do the traditional accompaniments of rice and cabbage. “Addictive” doesn’t even begin to describe the addictive nature of this dish, which is very addictive! Addictive, in the sense of being addicted to it while you are eating it. I myself just polished off a giant plate of it, all the while (through a mouthful of food) mumbling that there’s no way I was going to finish all of it.

But I did! And I could again, happily, every single day!