Today's lesson in Hawaiian culture is purple and gooey, and it requires Mason Chock to kick off his flip-flops and plunge knee-deep into brown, mucky water.

He emerges holding a dark, dripping tuber the size of a large russet potato. This is taro - or kalo, as it's often called here - and it has been the foundation of Hawaiian life since the first Polynesian voyagers came ashore 1,700 years ago.

Pounded into poi, it's a calcium-rich staple of the traditional Hawaiian diet, the purplish paste tourists edge warily past at the luau buffet. But culturally it sits at the head of the table: In island mythology, taro is considered an elder brother to the human race, and the Hawaiian word for family - ohana - derives from the shoots that sprout up around taro plants.

So it makes an excellent starting point for my impromptu, alfresco course in Hawaiian culture - even though it means I'll eventually have to put some in my mouth.

Resorts throughout the islands have made admirable strides in ushering out the Disneyesque Hawaiiana of cellophane-grass skirts and plastic tikis and replacing it with well-conceived cultural programs focused on authentic hula, weaving and storytelling. But culture is everywhere, and on a recent visit to Kauai I made it my goal to step outside the hotel lobbies and manicured grounds to seek out Hawaiian history and traditions in situ, as it were.

My search led me to an ancient fishing village with a location the Ritz- Carlton would covet, an Eden-like garden with hints of how the island looked - and smelled - before Europeans arrived, as well as this well-tended taro patch near the edge of Hanalei Bay on Kauai's lush, well-watered North Shore.

Belonging to the Waipa Foundation, it's part of a 1,600-acre tract known as an ahupua'a, an ancient Hawaiian land division. Based on watersheds, they're typically defined by sharp, green serrated ridges running from the center of the island down to the sea. If you think of the island as a pie, an ahupua'a would be a slice.

Each one contained fresh water, fertile land and pretty much everything else necessary for Hawaiian life. In the film "The Descendants," the tract of Kauai land George Clooney's character is thinking of developing is an ahupua'a.

The Waipa Foundation's ahupua'a escaped development in the 1980s and is now being restored by local families. Using the same irrigation their ancestors depended on for hundreds of years, they're growing taro, mangoes, ti leaves and other plants in a style they call "beyond organic."

It's part of a larger effort, Chock told me, to help Hawaiians reestablish a bond with their land.

"Ancient Hawaiians had a connection with every wind blowing through every valley, and every current in every stream," said Chock, who runs youth programs connected to the foundation. "But we've lost touch with the land for a long time now. We all go to work and make money - you just fall into it."

Three large nenes, Hawaii's endangered state bird, watched as Chock showed me the taro patches - they're flooded like rice paddies - and the fish ponds the foundation is restoring. Nearby is a workshop where craftsmen were fashioning traditional canoes and paddles from koa wood.

"We're trying to keep traditional practices alive," Chock said. "But we're not stuck in the past. We use tools like tractors. We're modern-day farmers, but our plants and ideals are traditional."

Experiencing Poi Day

The following morning I dropped by on Poi Day as local kapunas - community elders - gathered to transform the taro harvested from these ponds into the ubiquitous purple goo.

Working out of a tin-roof shed open to the cooling trade breezes, they had already boiled 600 to 800 pounds of taro overnight in 55-gallon steel drums over a fire of ironwood and java plum.

"Poi is poi, but there are subtleties," said Kalen Kelekoma, a local artist who showed me around. "Aficionados can always tell ours because of the smoky flavor."

Sitting on long wooden benches and hunching over plastic tubs, the volunteers first peeled the skin off the cooked taro with their thumbs, then used butter knives to scrape and cut away the tough, bitter parts.

Next it all went into an ancient, clanking hamburger grinder, where it was run through three times for a consistent texture. Then it was bagged for distribution to elders and low-income families throughout Kauai.

There was no way of avoiding what came next. Kelekoma dipped a spoon into the big vat of poi and handed it to me.

"It's rich in protein and calcium," he said as I held out the spoon, gathering my nerve. "Before Western contact, this was the only way Hawaiians got calcium. We didn't have any milk or dairy products."

I struggled to bring the spoon closer to my mouth.

"I was a poi baby," Kelekoma continued. "My mom would water it down and give it to me in a baby bottle."

He could see me wavering.

"When people are having dinner and the poi bowl is out on the table, the talk is always good," he continued. "You never talk stink about anybody when the poi's out. For that, you wait until the poi bowl has been put away."

I took a sniff and hesitated.

"Families have been going away from it for the last couple of generations," Kelekoma said. "We're trying to get poi back on the Hawaiian table."

Tourists who brave the poi at luaus almost inevitably describe it as tasting "like wallpaper paste." I have no idea what wallpaper paste tastes like, but after finally steeling my nerve I can attest that poi fresh from the grinder is simply delicious. It had a pleasing smoky, nutty taste, and a texture not unlike refried beans.

I went back for seconds.

What turns some people off, Kelekoma said, is the common practice of letting poi ripen for several days before eating it. My advice: If you can get your hands on some fresh poi, try it. It may turn you into a fan.

Visitors are invited to drop by and help on Poi Day, but the organizers make it clear they're not interested in quickie photo-ops. If you're willing to get up early - things get going at 5 a.m. - roll up your sleeves and follow instructions to the letter, you'll be welcomed. You will likely come away, as I did, with a newfound respect and appreciation for the purple goo you've been avoiding for years.

Stunning raft tour

Tour operators are increasingly incorporating history and culture into their outings. On a Zodiac raft tour of the Na Pali Coast we had stunning views of the sheer, corrugated sea cliffs in hues of blinkingly bright greens and oranges, and we paused to watch a large and frisky pod of spinner dolphins frolic in the water. But an unexpected bonus was our lunch stop at Nualolo Kai, an ancient fishing village perched on the narrow strip between the 1,200-foot-high cliffs and the sea. Home to about 100 people, it was inhabited from around 1100 into the early 1900s.

Now an archaeological site, it's mostly a collection of low stone walls, but it doesn't take much imagination to trace the outlines of a taro patch, a heiau - a sort of temple platform - and the walls of houses. Our guide pointed to a sheer cliff at one end of the beach where Hawaiian fishermen once scaled a rope ladder to visit their counterparts on a hanging valley above. Other than a sea voyage, it was the only access to the village.

Incidentally, some experts, notably Andrew Doughty, author of "The Ultimate Kauai Handbook," warn visitors against Na Pali trips departing from Port Allen on Kauai's South Shore. You have to cover too much unexciting ground to get to the good stuff, Doughty says. I've done it both ways - from Port Allen on this trip, and from Anini Beach on the North Shore several years ago - and while Doughty has a point, the difference to me wasn't a deal-breaker.

I'd base my decision on whether I was staying on the south or north shore, and whether the operator had a permit to come ashore at Nualolo Kai. Not all of them do.

Kauai comes to life

Kauai has undergone several dramatic makeovers since it rose out of the sea 6 million years ago.

Its once barren landscape slowly came to bloom with 1,200 or so plants whose seeds drifted here over the sea or were carried by pelagic birds. Then, about 1,800 years ago, Polynesian voyagers arrived in double-hulled canoes carrying the 27 plants (including, of course, taro) they needed to survive and thrive. The final makeover came with the arrival of Europeans in the late 1700s.

"That was when Pandora's box blew her lid," said Freddie Kaufman, who was giving me a tour of the Limahuli National Tropical Botanical Garden.

"In the 230 or so years after Captain Cook got here, 12,000 new plants were introduced to Kauai. Most of what you see today are these recently introduced plants."

Limahuli Garden, one of three national tropical botanical gardens on the island, gives you a chance to see what Kauai looked like before the Europeans, and, for that matter, the Polynesians, arrived.

A few miles west of Hanalei, it's tucked up against the spiky peak known to generations of "South Pacific" fans as Bali Hai.

Native Hawaiian plants, Kaufman told me, are among the most endangered in the world. Of the 792 species on the U.S. endangered plant list, 319 are Hawaiian, and 145 of them are from Kauai.

"Some of the plants that grow here no longer grow anywhere else on the planet," Kaufman said. "We protect this land like bankers protect their vaults."

The land here is an old ahupua'a, centered on Limahuli Stream, considered the most pristine steam in Hawaii.

As we strolled through the gardens, Kaufman pointed out a white hibiscus - its Hawaiian name is Koki'o ke'oke'o - which was thought to be extinct until two bushes were discovered in the back of the Limahuli Valley in the 1970s.

The garden is divided into three sections: The Plantation Era Garden features plants introduced by Europeans, the Canoe Garden focuses on the 27 plants brought here by the Polynesian voyagers, and the Native Forest Walk is a rare example of how the island looked before humans arrived.

In the Canoe Garden, Kaufman pointed out the kukui tree, whose nut fueled the original tiki torches, and the sugar cane, which he called "the Polynesian power bar. They'd keep a chunk in their pocket for a quick pick-me-up."

And, of course, in a place of honor, stood the taro patches, still enclosed in rock walls and irrigated by water diverted from the Limahuli Stream, as they have been for the past 700 years.

Walking past it made my mouth water a little as I contemplated how the plants would one day be boiled and ground into delicious purple goo.