Pumpkin Poke (Cook Islands Pumpkin Pudding)

My hands learned kinship at a Hawaiian poi board, but the canoe kept telling me the table was wider than my own island. In Kūki ʻĀirani (Cook Islands), that lesson came to me in a square of pumpkin poke, poke meaning pudding here, not the raw-fish poke we say back home. One auntie laughed because I heard the word and my mind went straight to ʻahi (tuna). No, boy, this one sweet.

This is the Cooks' hand, not mine to claim: golden pumpkin cooked soft, set with pia (Polynesian arrowroot starch), baked until it stands, then covered with boiled coconut cream until every cut edge shines. Banana poke is the close cousin at the same Cook Islands table. Tahiti has poʻe, fruit or breadfruit pudding fed with coconut milk, and back home in Hawaiʻi, kūlolo carries kalo (taro), coconut, and sugar into a firm sweet. One ocean, one canoe, one root, but every island keeps its own bowl.

So bring it forward without making it precious. Use the pumpkin you can find, kabocha or buttercup if the market has them because they cook dry and sweet. Cook it until it gives up easy, dry it down, cool it before the pia goes in, and don't rush the set. Deep food is not fancy. It is patient. It feeds the room.