Hawaiian Luau

Few Repasts are as familiar as the luau, the Hawaiian feast that is lodged in the popular imagination as the embodiment of Polynesian hospitality, a sacred feast rooted in antiquity, the essence of traditional island life--but is it? This anthropological study of the Hawaiian luau begins with the rituals and taboos that surrounded food and eating in precontact Hawaii. It describes how the luau became a catalyst for a social revolution; how heathen luaus were repressed under the American missionaries and revived by Hawaii's last king as the national meal; how the luau was again repressed after the American takeover of the islands; and how it re-emerged as an invented tradition in the interests of tourism.