Kulolo

Kulolo is one of the oldest desserts in the Hawaiian repertoire, made long before European ships reached the islands. It uses just two things — taro (kalo) and coconut — and taro in particular carries enormous cultural weight: in the creation story, the first child of the sky father Wakea was stillborn and buried, and from that spot grew the first taro plant, regarded as the elder sibling of humankind, while the next, living child became the ancestor of the Native Hawaiian people. Cooks traditionally wrapped the raw mash with coconut in ti leaves and buried it in an imu, the underground earth oven, where it slow-cooked for the better part of a day and darkened into its signature dense, glossy block. The island of Kauai, where taro grows most abundantly, became especially known for it, and to this day kulolo is sold there by the pound, cut from large pans.

Dense, sticky, and chewy, somewhere between fudge and a steamed sticky cake, with the earthy, almost chestnut-like flavor of taro held together by rich coconut. It is restrained in sweetness, so the kalo really speaks, and it leaves a clean, nutty finish on the tongue. The giveaway is its texture and color: a deep, glossy, caramel-toned taro fudge that cuts in clean slabs, nothing like a wobbly set pudding.

Grated raw taro is mixed with coconut milk and sugar (or, leaning on the taro's own sweetness, little to none), wrapped in ti leaves, and slow-cooked for hours — traditionally buried in the imu for six to eight hours or more, now usually baked in a foil-covered pan or steamed — until it sets into a dense, chewy, caramel-colored fudge. The key is the taro: it is extremely starchy, so the long, moist heat gelatinizes the starch into a thick paste that firms up on cooling, which is why kulolo turns sliceable rather than soft. The deep mahogany color and toffee edge come from that marathon cook — the sugars in the taro and coconut milk caramelize, aided by Maillard browning between sugars and proteins, shifting the color from pale purple to dark brown while the moist heat keeps it from drying out.