Pelehū

Turkey

        Gearing up for the big Thanksgiving Day festivities!  So I want to equip you with some vocabulary words that you can use in your food preparation. Teach the kids (or grandkids!), make vocabulary placecards.    Another word for turkey is pōkeokeo.  Some areas say palahū (like Waimea, Hawai'i).
        We've got lots of pelehū roaming wild here in Hāmākua but fortunately for them, it's easier to pay $5.00 for a ready to cook one from Sack n Save than to have to shoot, pluck, clean, and cook for DAYS our own for free.  Maybe not as fun, but a heck of a lot less work.  Plus those pelehū know not to come around in November! We did (and by we I mean my son and my brother, John) shoot a couple of pelehū for Motherʻs Day last year and just used the breast meat. It made a wonderful turkey burger for our meal! The rest of the carcass was returned to the earth way up in the pasture only to be recovered by my lab, Loku. Three days worth of feathers flying around her kennel. Sheʻs like a vulture.

E 'ai ana kākou i ka pelehū - We are going to eat a turkey

Nui ka pelehū ma Hawai'i - There are a lot of turkeys on Hawai'i