Your average run of the mill Luau party menu will include many foods that, of course, originated in the Hawaiian Islands. Though you shouldn't be surprised if you come across non-native foods that have been Hawaiianized.

Lau Lau is a very traditional Hawaiian food. It's composed of either a pork, chicken or veggie filling. The veggies in this case would be sweet potato, onions, and carrots. The filling is lightly seasoned with pork fat or a piece of Butterfish and salt. Its wrapped in tender edible leaves and wrapped again with larger and inedible Ti leaves. The entire thing is steamed until very tender and unwrapped to eat.

Kalua Pork is what we most often think of when we imagine the Hawaiian Luau. In truth it isn't often an entire roast pig these days, but pork that has de-boned and had the excess fat cut away. It's baked, surrounded with seasonings, and fruits and veggies in a wood or charcoal oven and if done right comes out incredibly tender and moist. In the old, old days Kalua Pork was made in an underground oven. Many private Luau parties still make use of this cooking method.

Lomi Salmon is a contemporary dish found at Luaus. It consists of heavily salted Salmon filet, diced tomatoes, and often crushed ice. In order to make it one would shred the salmon and remove any bones, then mix it with the tomatoes in a kneading fashion, which is where the name came from as Lomi means to knead. In some cases the mixture is chilled, or you can actually add ice to it and serve immediately. Salmon isn't native to the area, but was thought to have been utilized in this dish because of its fleshy red color.

Other common Luau menu items include, rice, mashed sweet potato, poi or mashed taro root, Kim Chee which is a Korean dish made of cabbage that can be used as a dip and Banana Bread.