.jpg/960px-Tanaman_Daun_Talas_(Taro_Leaves).jpg)
Where does Luau (the word) come from?
The word luau comes from Hawaii. In Hawaiian, lūʻau means young taro leaves, the heart of a stew served at feasts, and the name of the dish became the name of the whole feast. English first recorded it in 1853.
Young taro leaves
Lūʻau are the young leaves, or tops, of the taro plant. Cooked with coconut milk and usually octopus or chicken, they make lūʻau stew, one of the dishes served at a Hawaiian feast. Etymonline explains the English word as coming from these 'young taro tops', which were served at outdoor feasts. Hawaiians had older words for such meals: dinners and smaller gatherings were pāʻina, and larger feasts were ʻahaʻaina. In time, the name of the dish came to stand for the whole party.
A feast for everyone
In ancient Hawaii, men and women ate their meals separately under the kapu system of rules, and some special foods were kept from commoners and women. In 1819 King Kamehameha II ate with women, ending those rules, and the lūʻau parties date from that time. Merriam-Webster and Etymonline both date the word's first known use in English to 1853, for a Hawaiian party or feast. Today it has spread far beyond the islands.
Eaten by hand
At a traditional luau, the food was laid out on mats on the floor, often decorated with tī leaves, and there were no utensils: everything was eaten by hand. The highlight was often kālua puaʻa, a whole pig slow-cooked in an imu, an underground oven. Some credit the restaurateur Donn Beach with making luaus popular on the US mainland; in 1946 Life magazine showed one he held in Encino, California. In Hawaii today, people speak of graduation, wedding, baby and birthday luaus.
Sources: etymonline.com ↗ · merriam-webster.com ↗ · en.wikipedia.org ↗ · afar.com ↗
.jpg/330px-Duckbill_Platypus_(35659024604).jpg)
