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Hawaiian · VI The Beverage Tradition

Lilikoʻi Juice

Hawaiʻi (the islands generally)

‹ The Beverage Tradition

I

Origin

Lilikoʻi, the yellow and purple passion fruit Passiflora edulis, is a post-contact fruit in Hawaiʻi, a vine of fences, gulches and hillsides that has run wild across the islands and become part of the local table. Its juice belongs to the local kitchen rather than the pre-contact one, pressed in homes and sold as a bottled drink, and it is one of the three fruits of the breakfast blend known as POG. The juice carries no single founder; it is held in common by the households that gather the fruit from the vine.

II

Description

Lilikoʻi juice is the strained pulp of Passiflora edulis, the golden-orange, seedy flesh pressed from the hard-shelled fruit and cleared of its black seeds. Unsweetened it is intensely tart, aromatic and floral, and it is usually diluted with water and sweetened only far enough to make it drinkable. It is also the base for lilikoʻi butter, a cooked preparation of pulp with sugar, butter and eggs, and for the lilikoʻi syrup of the shave-ice stand.

III

The Thread

—Both drinks take the pulp of the same species, Passiflora edulis, and rely on its sharp acidity to carry dilution and sugar. Brazilian suco de maracujá is commonly made as a cold drink from the whole household fruit, while the Hawaiian juice more often travels into a blend such as POG. Brazilian
—French cooking uses passion-fruit juice and pulp in drinks, sauces and desserts, setting its acid against richness in the way lilikoʻi is set against sweetness in the islands. The French use is a pastry and sauce one, where the Hawaiian one is a fruit of fences and kitchens. French
—Both are cold, diluted fruit drinks of the household, sweetened only far enough to be drunk freely and kept bright by acid. The Peruvian drink is made from purple maize with fruit and spice, while lilikoʻi juice is pressed raw from the pulp of a single fruit. Peruvian
IV

Flavour Context

Lilikoʻi juice is drunk at breakfast and through the day, cold and diluted, and its tartness makes it suited to richness: it is set beside pancakes and toast with lilikoʻi butter, and it is poured into cocktails. In POG it sits with passion fruit, orange and guava, the acid of the lilikoʻi holding up the sweeter fruits. Its tartness is the structural reason, cutting through fat and sugar in the way li hing mui cuts through sweetness.

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