Hawaiian Pig

The Hawaiian Pig can be a great option if your kettle grill and your 125-pound pig don’t seem to match. After all, not everyone has a big cooker, but everyone owns a shovel. As Tom Sawyer once said, “Digging the hole can be half the fun”—or something like that. And the moist and tender results from a homemade earthen oven are hard to match with any cooking apparatus. In Hawaii large volcanic rocks are used to line the imu, or underground oven. These rocks hold the heat for an extended period of time, ensuring a proper cook. You can substitute river rocks if they are taken from a “dry” river or creek bed. Rocks from a wet stream have trapped moisture and when they heat they can explode and send shards of sharp rock whistling through the air. You will also need to find banana leaves and/or ti leaves. Banana trees are often used as ornamental plants for residential landscaping, and leaves can be harvested with no damage to the tree. They are also available frozen in many Latin and Caribbean markets. Ti leaves can be acquired at your local florist, but they can be expensive.