The First Hawaiian Christmas
copyright 2007, D. Leilehua Yuen
Hawaiian Culture and Arts News
While this time of year has been a time of celebration since the days of Lonoikamakahiki, the first Christmas celebration in the islands was held in 1786 in Waimea Bay, off the coast of Kauai, onboard an English sailing vessel, the QUEEN CHARLOTTE.
The missionaries, those austere proponents of New England Christianity, would not arrive in the Hawaiian Islands for another thirty four years – not until March 30, 1820. And Christmas was not a holiday to them. As the bible made no mention of celebrating Christmas, they did not do so. In fact, in their home of New England, celebrating Christmas was illegal.
It would 1862 before before Christmas would become an official holiday in the islands.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE’s captain, George Dixon, had served under James Cook during Cook’s third Pacific voyage, and was familiar with the Hawaiian islands. In 1785, he made a career move to the merchant marine, becoming a partner in Richard Cadman Etches and Company – better known to Americans as the King George’s Sound Company.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE traveled in company with the KING GEORGE, captained by Nathaniel Portlock, commander of the expedition to explore the shoreline of what is now British Colombia. They spent the summers of 1786 and 1787 coasting the Pacific North-West. That winter of 1786 they spent in, as Hawai`i was then known to English-speakers, the “Sandwich Isles.”
Christmas Eve, Captain Portlock had gone ashore and given out trinkets to women and children he met. On Christmas Day, he had a visitor aboard the KING GEORGE, and that night wrote in his log, "Kiana came off in a long double canoe and brought me a present of some hogs and vegetables which I received gladly, and made a return that pleased him very much."
Far from home, the sailors had no contact with family or land-based friends. It could take years for a simple letter to reach a sweetheart. There was no such thing as speed-dial or e-mail.
To cheer their spirits, Captain Dixon ordered a celebration of the Christmas holy day. He had a holiday punch made by having the men’s ration of rum mixed with coconut juice. Island hog was baked into a sea-pie for the festive supper. Such fresh meat was a real treat for the sailors, who spent months at sea subsisting primarily on salt meat and hard biscuits.
Probably the sailors sang traditional carols of the British Isles, such as Here We Come a Wassailing, and I Saw Three Ships. Fiddles, guitars, banjos, harmonicas, flutes, and whistles were popular among sailors, and some of these instruments may have accompanied the songs.
Following is a holiday menu which could have been served on a ship in the Hawai`i of 1786:
Sea Pie
Jungle Fowl
Fish
Fiddleheads
Breadfruit Yams Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Fruit
Grog Tea Wai Niu
Sea Pie
There are many claims for the origin of the sea pie. Some say it is a
French meat pie, mispronounced, others claim it as a Canadian explorer’s
dish, filled with game. Some say it is a gamebird pie from the British
Isles. I like to think it is an old English “mess” which was adapted to
ship-cookery, able to make palatable whatever game or harvest those sent
ashore were able to bring back. Following is a recipe from the “family
archives.”
Wet hard tack with water and line pot. Lay in split pigeons
to cover. Dry or gamey birds may be laced with lard. Lay on a layer of
hard tack. Lay in beef, elk, venison, mutton, or what scraps may be
available. Repeat layers till the pot is full and no meat wasted. Add
water to cover meat and top with hardtack. Cover. Place in hot coals for
two-three hours.
You can make it palatable to modern tastes with the following substitutions:
Pilot
Crackers (Saloon Pilots) for stale and buggy hardtack
Chicken Thighs or Cornish Hens for game birds (or if you hunt, go ahead
and use game birds!)
Any inexpensive cuts of meat
Salt
Pepper
Flour
Sprinkle cubed meat and the birds with salt and pepper. Roll in flour. Brown in a heavy skillet. Line a large pot with the pilot crackers and make layers as in the original recipe. Add chicken broth or some bouillon. Cover. Bake in a 250 degree oven for about two and a half hours, or until meats are tender.
Jungle Fowl
Jungle fowl, or moa, an ancestor of the chicken, was readily available and likely would have been potted or stewed. It may have been included in the Sea Pie, along with the hog.
Fish
Fresh fish would have been available. In all likelihood, the ships’ cooks would have potted them, using the Sea Pie recipe. Hopefully, someone would have considered grilling or baking the fish.
Fiddleheads
English and American sailors would have recognized fiddleheads, the curled young shoots of ferns. In Hawai`i they are known as hō`i`o, and have been a makahiki food for centuries. Yams, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, and fiddleheads may have been among the “fresh vegetables” Kiana gave Captain Portlock.
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Add a quarter cup of apple vinegar (Capt. Cook promoted keeping vinegar on sailing ships of this era as a tonic to prevent scurvy, and as a disinfectant). Add cleaned and chopped ho`i`o. Boil until just tender.
Breadfruit
Breadfruit likely would have been pushed into the coals and baked for two or three hours, until tender, and then eaten like potatoes. An imaginative ship’s cook may have partially cooked them, peeled and cut them up, and added them to the sea pie, where they would absorb the gravy.
“Potatoes”
Probably the “potatoes” mentioned by the early sailors were yams harvested from the hillsides. Sweet potatoes were cultivated at that time by the Hawaiians, but not a favored provision for the ships’ crews, due to their short storage life. Yams, while more grainy and less sweet, lasted much longer on an ocean voyage.
Yams
Brown salt pork (or bacon) in a heavy pot. Cut up some yams (about half a large yam per person is usually plenty). Let the pot cool a bit. Add the yams to the pot and water to cover. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the yams are tender.
If sweet potatoes had been included in Kiana’s gift, they may have been cooked like this:
Sweet Potatoes
Push sweet potatoes into coals while cooking the Sea Pie. In half an hour, start testing with a sharp knife. When knife easily pierces the potato, it is done. Mash and serve sprinkled with sugar. (Captain Cook instituted carrying sugar as a sweetener rather than oil. Similar in caloric content and quickly available energy, sugar did not go rancid during voyages. Previously, British seamen flavored their biscuits by sopping them in oil.)
Fresh Fruit
We know that the sailors had access to
coconuts, as the holiday punch was made from coconut juice and rum.
The papayas, mangoes, pineapples, and other popular fruits
we find today in restaurant buffet lines were not introduced to the
islands until well into the 1800s.
Fruits of the time were mountain apple and banana. But they
probably were not in season for the Christmas celebration.
Beverages
Fresh water from Hawai`i was safe to drink, but water which had been kept on shipboard was not noted for healthfulness. Officers tended to drink tea or coffee, safer due to boiling the water. Beer was sometimes carried on a ship, but probably would not last all the way to Hawai`i. Grog, rum mixed with water, was considered a seaman’s right. At the time of this first Hawaiian Christmas, `okolehao had not yet been invented.
Hawaiian Christmas Grog
Pour a jigger of rum in glass, add fresh coconut water. Ice is cheating! To get it, you would have to sail to Maui and climb Hale`akala, or to Hawai`i and climb Mauna Loa or Mauna Kea!
Spiced Holiday Tea
If you are drinking tea, you may well be an officer, and have your own private stash of spices. Live it up! have your servant put a pinch of cinnamon and a spot of rum in the pot when he brews your tea.
Wai Niu Haohao
Non-alcoholic and very refreshing, the effervescent water of a freshly opened young coconut was prized then and continues to be enjoyed today by those “in the know.”
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