Hawaiian Poke Cups

Only use sushi-grade tuna from a trusted source. Keep everything very cold until serving. The wonton cups add crunch but spoon chips or lettuce cups work too. Don't overdress the fish - it should taste clean and fresh.

Poke is one of the oldest continuously prepared foods in Hawaiian cuisine. Britannica confirms that the word poke, rhyming with okay, comes from the Polynesian language spoken in Hawaii and means "chunk" or "something cut away by crosscutting" — a literal description of how the dish is made. Daily Meal documents that the dish's origins lie with the native Polynesians who migrated to the Hawaiian Islands between roughly 500 and 1500 CE; fishing was central to their survival, and fishermen prepared the cut-offs from their daily catch — the trimmings left after filleting — as a snack or small meal, seasoned simply. Hawaii Life Vacations confirms the three traditional seasonings: paʻakai (sea salt, both for flavour and preservation), limu (edible seaweed), and ʻinamona (roasted, ground, salted kukui nut, also known as candlenut, brought to Hawaii from the South Pacific by the original Polynesian settlers). Before Western and Asian contact, the fish used was primarily reef fish caught from Hawaiian shores; the ahi tuna that defines modern poke only became commercially available in the 1960s, according to Britannica. The transformation of poke into its current form came through waves of immigration: Japanese workers and their descendants who arrived in Hawaii from the late 19th century onward introduced soy sauce, sesame oil, and green onions — a fusion that produced the marinade now considered standard. Sam Choy, one of the original founders of Hawai'i Regional Cuisine, organized the first poke competition in 1992. Poke's mainland American popularity accelerated in the early 2010s; Wikipedia records that the number of Hawaiian restaurants listed on Foursquare doubled from 342 to 700 between 2014 and mid-2016.