Poke means to cut crosswise in Hawaiian. The recipe lives inside the word: fishermen cut cubes from the day’s catch, tossed them with sea salt, with the seaweed called limu, and with inamona made of roasted kukui nuts, and shared the bowl on deck. That was the essence of the dish: whatever you have, at its freshest, in one vessel.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese immigrants arriving to work the plantations brought soy sauce and sesame oil with them. Poke joined the two worlds; Hawaii’s salt met Japan’s umami, and the taste we know today was born.

The bowl always knew how to take in guests, picking up a local accent in every port. Our accent is shrimp. On the Mediterranean coast, shrimp is not a luxury but an everyday affection, the most familiar face in the nets, the seat of honor at the grill. Its sweet flesh sits easily in this bowl among warm rice, crisp vegetables and avocado.

The ease of a fisherman’s deck, the ingredients of a Mediterranean city. The bowl is the same bowl; the sea has changed, the generosity has not.