From Food & Wine
The raw tuna salad known as poke certainly isn't a new creation, but lately we've been seeing versions of it everywhere—even stuffed into a burrito. One of our favorite new versions is on the menu at Noreetuh, a new Hawaiian restaurant in New York's East Village run by three Per Se alums, Chung Chow, Jin Ahn and Gerald San Jose. We caught up with chef de cuisine (and Hawaii native) Chow for a primer on all things poke.
First of all, what is poke? Is it a dish with a clear origin story?
The word poke simply means “chunk” in Hawaiian. That said, in the past poke was typically any meat or seafood that is cut into small chunks and marinated. When referring to poke nowadays, it is generally seafood. It’s unclear exactly what the origin is, though many agree that chunks of marinated seafood have been consumed for a long time by locals, and if you ask anyone from Hawaii such as myself, I’ve known poke all my life and just grew up eating it.
What is the proper way to pronounce poke?
Poke is pronounced (poh-KAY) and rhymes with okay.
Is there one generally agreed-upon style, or are there regional variations?
Generally speaking, poke would refer to raw pieces of tuna cut into cubes, then marinated with soy sauce and sesame oil and mixed with onion; though the variations go far beyond this generalization. Poke doesn’t necessarily have to be tuna or even seafood, nor does it have to be raw or cubed. If can be cooked or raw, cubed or scraped, and doesn’t even have to be fish or seafood. Cubed avocado is sometimes used. If you go to a local grocery store in Hawaii, poke is a staple, and there are endless varieties including poke made using octopus, poke that is dressed with a creamy mayonnaise and poke garnished with kimchi or wasabi, resulting from the strong influences of Japanese and Korean cuisines.
http://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/7-things-you-need-know-about-poke
