When Mother Nature whips up a frenzy and the barges can’t dock, what will we do? At best, Hawaii’s food supply can feed residents for a couple of weeks. The hard facts surrounding this issue have become mantras for government, environmental, culinary and community experts as they struggle to lead the masses toward the goal of a food-sustainable Hawaii.

Case in point: The entire month of September is being dedicated by Kanu Hawaii to the Eat Local Challenge. (See story)

Before all the preaching, appeals and challenges began, however, Lopaka Aiwohi had already been quietly living off the land, hunting, fishing and preserving his bounty in a dry box. The box is a screened container in which food is dehydrated in the sun and the wind.

Today, he shares his knowledge of the process through his work for Ka‘ala Farm, a nonprofit organization in Waianae that passes on Hawaiian cultural traditions of tending and living off the aina.

Aiwohi, manager and cultural instructor for Ka‘ala’s ‘Opelu Project, says dried food sustained ancient Hawaiians on long mountain and ocean journeys. Aiwohi himself takes dried food on hunting trips. He dries everything from fruit to beef, venison, goat, fish and squid.

“Dried is better because it can’t go rancid,” not to mention that “dried fish is expensive — it can cost $40 or $45 a pound — and when you make your own, you can season it however you like. You can keep it for years, though it usually doesn’t last that long — it’s so good.”

The fundamental ingredient for drying meat and seafood is salt.

“That’s No. 1,” Aiwohi says. “Salt helps preserve the meat and kills parasites and bacteria.”

Meat must sit in salt or a brine at least overnight. Brining is the easier method when dealing with a high volume of food. When salting and brining, rinse off the food before drying. “If it’s salty when it’s wet, it’s saltier dried,” he says.

Beyond that, the rest is “imagination and common sense,” he says.

Some of Aiwohi’s favorite marinades are teriyaki sauce, a salt and pepper recipe and an onion powder recipe. Peanut oil helps seasonings stick to food, and flies don’t like it, he says.

Meat should be sliced thin and uniform for efficient, even drying. It’s also important to trim fat to keep meat from going rancid. Put the marinade in a resealable bag and add pieces one at a time so the sauce coats each piece evenly, he says.

“Experiment,” Aiwohi says. “When you’re trying something for the first time, don’t make a big batch. But always take notes because it might be your champion recipe.”

Meat can be eaten soft after a day of drying; after 21/2 days, it’s crispy (though a marinade with sugar will keep the meat chewy).

Aiwohi butterflies reef fish and squid and fillets bigger fish, which he dries in slabs.

Thicker slabs naturally take longer to dry, but after four days, Aiwohi says the fish is “hard like a two-by-four. You can store it in a pillowcase for a long time.”

Fish dried to this extent can be used for stock. Or, to prepare for eating, he soaks the slab in water for an hour or two to reconstitute it then slices it into sticks. He returns those to the dry box for half a day, then the fish is ready to eat.

Aiwohi likes his fish half dried, then fried. He said the finished product can be eaten “bones and all.”

Squid should be dried a minimum of 21⁄2 days. Aiwohi says the dried product is especially delicious when grilled or baked for about 10 minutes. The heat fluffs up the flesh and brings out the oils, which softens it.

Victor Olivera of the Waikiki Hawaiian Civic Club also uses a dry box, mostly when fishing friends bring him a large catch. He slices his fish into strips and seasons with nothing else but Hanapepe salt. “I learned from my grandma, who liked to dry fish,” he said.

Besides sunlight, the other vital factor to dry boxing is wind.

“If you have just heat, only the outside of the food will dry and moisture will be trapped inside,” Aiwohi says. “But if it’s overcast or raining and there’s wind, and the rain won’t hit the product, you can still dry food.

“When I dry reef fish, I start with the skin side up. The skin keeps in some moisture. The moisture drips out the bottom with gravity. Then, after 45 minutes, I flip it, and the wind and the sun sweep the last of the moisture away.”

AIWOHI’S VERSION of the dry box is a shallow, rectangular box framed in wood covered with screen on all sides. A lid allows access to a wire rack inside. This is where food is placed. Dry boxes can be made in any size.

The screen keeps out “dogs from the top and cats from the bottom,” though ants may be a problem, he says.

Aiwohi’s solution for his tabletop-sized boxes is to place them on wooden sawhorses, the legs of which are placed in cans of water to keep ants away. Smaller boxes can be hung from a string coated with Vaseline.

Olivera says he’s seen dry boxes topped with glass that intensify the heat and even one made with a soda box and screen. He uses a commercially made box sold at Don Quijote that is multitiered and can be hung from a string.

AIWOHI SAYS Ka‘ala Farm teaches youths about the resources on the island. They learn that “when Matson can’t get inside, the stores can’t open and the refrigerators are floating on the ocean, we still have the animals and the ocean.”

Also, he says, “We take care of the aina and it takes care of us.”

Aiwohi himself is a living example of that. Having grown up “in the country on two sides of the island — I lived in Hauula and graduated from Castle, but I spent my childhood in Nanakuli and now live in Waianae — there’s been a lot of fishing and hunting.”

Today, he regularly eats food gathered directly from the ocean and mountains.

“It’s all about sharing,”

Aiwohi says. “A fisherman can catch the fish, but he doesn’t dry it. So he gives me fish and I prepare it. Then we go half-half. It’s like a partnership going on.

“I don’t like it when the dry boxes are empty, so I keep filling them.”

Visit www.kaalafarm.org, email kaalafarm@gmail.com or call 696-4954.