Lomi-lomi salmon (or lomi salmon) is a side dish in

Hawaiian cuisine The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands, primarily originating from Polynesian, North American and East Asian cuisines. In t ...

containing salted

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

, onions, and tomatoes. Its origin is similar to '' poisson cru''. It resembles ''

pico de gallo ''Pico de gallo'' (; ), also called ''salsa fresca'' ('fresh sauce'), ''salsa bandera'' ('flag sauce'), and ''salsa cruda'' ('raw sauce'), is a type of salsa commonly used in Mexican cuisine. It is traditionally made from chopped tomato, oni ...

'' not only in appearance, but also in the way it is often consumed: as an accompaniment (or condiment) to other foods, in this case '' poi'' or '' kalua pork''. Hawaiians of yesteryear would probably not recognize the contemporary version of this dish served today. However, it is seen today as a quintessential side dish when serving traditional Hawaiian foods or at traditional lū‘au festivities. While

is not a fish found in Hawaiian waters, and onions and tomatoes are not "pre-contact" foods, ''lomilomi salmon'' is still embraced as an ethnic Hawaiian dish. It is appropriate that dish should be known popularly by its

hapa Hapa () is a Hawaiian word for someone of multiracial ancestry. In Hawaii, the word refers to any person of mixed ethnic heritage, regardless of the specific mixture.: "Thus, for locals in Hawai’i, both hapa or hapa haole are used to depi ...

name "lomi salmon" rather than "lomi kāmano". A similar dish called ''lomi ōpae'' ( lit. "shrimp") uses dried shrimp in place of salted salmon and was made popular by singer Henry Kapono.

Preparation

Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was settled at least 800 years ago by Polynesians ...

were first introduced to salmon around the early 1800s, as contract laborers sent to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. Salmon would have likely been traditionally prepared as ''

poke Poke may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Poke (Ender's Game), Poke (''Ender's Game''), a fictional character * Poke (game), a two-player card game * Poke, a fictional bar owner in the television series ''Treme (season 2), Treme'' * The ...

''. A typical relish was made of ''

inamona Inamona is a condiment or relish used in traditional Hawaiian cooking made from seed kernels of the kukui nut (candlenuts) and sea salt. To make traditional ''ʻinamona'', the fruits of the kukui are harvested, dried, and husked. The exposed dr ...

'' mixed with dried ''alaala'' (octopus liver) and '' ʻalaea'' salt. The poke was accompanied with several types of ''akaakai'' (onion), '' limu kohu'' and a large bowl of poi. A type of ''poke'' in essence, the name ''lomilomi'' is taken from the traditional method of preparation ( Hawaiian for "to massage") where fresh fish is rubbed with salt in varying amounts to simply season it for flavor or to cure it for preservation. In the evolution of this dish from its ''poke'' origins, the salt salmon is then cubed into small ~1cm pieces and again massaged into chopped tomatoes and onions of about the same size. Some modern recipes call for scallions, cucumbers, chilis, additional salt, or lime, or even fish substitutes other than salmon and is typically served chilled or with ice.

Background

When Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

arrived in 1778, he brought along with him the concept of preserved fish and meat—such as salted cod and corned beef—common rations of foreign navies, whalers, and traders. In the 1790s, Spanish horticulturist Francisco de Paula Marin brought tomatoes to the Hawaiian Islands. He was the first to successfully cultivate and raise tomatoes. De Paula Marin further popularized the planting of onions. In 1829, the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

, a fur trading company looking to expand its business in new resources discovered during the expeditions of the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, near the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The eastern route along the Arctic ...

, established an office in Honolulu to market the

's abundant timber to a growing non-native settlement. The company would hire many Hawaiians as sailors and laborers in the fur and lumber trades. The physical strength of the native Hawaiians had made an impression on the British. Dozens were initially sent to their British Columbia facilities which also operated commercial fisheries at its Fort Langley trading post. Many were likely to have consumed fresh and cured salmon, which became a very important

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...

. By 1840, around 300 to 400 native Hawaiian laborers were sent to the Northwest in vessels and at ports. Many of these laborers chose to permanently settle in the Northwest after their contracts expired. For those returning to Hawaii, the voyage took about three weeks. Since fresh salmon would not last the journey, these laborers introduced salted salmon, which immediately became popular. The practice of salting fish for preservation was already known to the ancient Hawaiians, and was often consumed with poi during periods when the regular fish supply was scarce or when fishing was not possible like during storms. Fish was preferably eaten raw with some

alaea salt Alaea salt, alternatively referred to as Hawaiian red salt, is an unrefined sea salt that has been mixed with an iron oxide rich volcanic clay called ''alaea'', which gives the seasoning its characteristic brick red color. It is part of Native Ha ...

or sometimes seasoned with blood from the gills. The families of missionaries found salted salmon to be a substitute for

salt cod Dried and salted cod, sometimes referred to as salt cod or saltfish or salt dolly, is cod which has been preserved by drying after salting. Cod which has been dried without the addition of salt is stockfish. Salt cod was long a major export o ...

—the New England standby. Similarly, the Portuguese starting in the late 1800s brought with them ''

bacalhau () is the Portuguese word for cod and—in a culinary context— dried and salted cod. Fresh (unsalted) cod is referred to as ' (fresh cod). Portuguese and other cuisines dishes are common in Portugal, and also in former Portuguese colonie ...

'', a Portuguese salted cod. The Northwest was exporting 3,000 to 4,000 barrels of salted salmon, mainly to Hawaii and Asia by 1835. Following the formation of a constitutional monarchy in Hawaii, the first tariff act took effect on January 1, 1843. The first vessel to make customs entry and to pay the ''

ad valorem tax An ''ad valorem'' tax (Latin for "according to value") is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of a property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax (VAT) ...

'' at three percent was the Hudson's Bay barque ''

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

'' from the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

, January 6, 1843. The vessel's cargo consisted of 695 barrels of Columbia River salmon valued at $4,170 ($172,261 in 2023), and 160 twelve-foot four-inch planks valued at $307.20 ($12,690.31 in 2023). On this amount $134.32 ($5,548.70 in 2023) in duty was collected.

Preparation

Background

See also

References

Further reading