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Getting to the
Roots of
Hawaii Regional Cuisine
by Betty Fullard-Leo
Mention local food in Hawaii, and people think of fish
and poi, plate lunches with macaroni salad and rice,
squid luau made with taro leaves, or poke made of raw
fish and seaweed. Mention regional cuisine in the Islands
and people picture exquisite plates of beautifully prepared
food, incorporating the freshest of fish and produce,
often with aromatic flavors of ginger, soy and garlic,
or ingredients unique to Hawaii, perhaps fern shoots
gathered in Waipio Valley, or goat cheese from the Puna
District.
What do the two cuisines have in common? They both
evolved from ingredients grown and raised in the Islands
that were mixed together by cooks from half-a-dozen
different ethnic backgrounds, blending flavors specific
to each culture. Regional cuisine could be considered
an updated version of local food beautifully presented
by professional chefs.
The roots of regional cuisine (as well as local food)
can be traced to the arrival of the first Polynesians
who brought food plants for sustenance in the new land
- many are still used by fine chefs today. Among them,
breadfruit (a large, green pulpy fruit) was a staple,
along with taro (from which poi is made), coconuts,
bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, sugar cane, kukui nut
(ground roasted to make a flavoring called inamona),
and mountain apples. Combined with Island fish such
as mullet and mahimahi, and other seafood, like seaweed
and the mussel called opihi (which continues to be a
delicacy), the early Hawaiian diet was nutritious and
low in fat, but possibly lacked the excitement of variety.
From the mid-1800's, as each wave of new immigrants
came to work in the sugar cane fields, they introduced
flavors and ingredients from their homelands - Chinese
five-spice, char siu, tofu, soybeans and rice; Japanese
sashimi, wasabi, soy and ginger; Portuguese sausage,
bean soup, sweet breads, and malassadas; and Filipino
patis (a thin fish sauce), bagoong (a thicker fish sauce)
and the leaves of bitter melon, jicama, and marungary
that are used in stews and soups.
The blending of cooking styles was inevitable in Hawaii's
plantation villages. When Japanese contract laborers
were imported in the 1880's, they lived side-by-side
with Hawaiian and Chinese workers in simple, single-walled
wooden houses. The Chinese built community cookhouses,
the Japanese added mom-and-pop tofu (soybean curd) factories.
People tasted their neighbors' food - at lunch time
in the fields, at weekend gatherings and on special
holidays.
When tourism came into its own in the mid 1900's, visitors
used to grumble wryly, "The only good food you
get in Hawaii is on the plane going over!" For
years, Continental cuisine prepared by European chefs
was considered the epitome of fine dining. But behind
the scenes, in the kitchens of elegant restaurants,
kitchen help feasted on interesting, flavorful treats
they had learned to make at home. Alan Wong, whose Oahu
restaurant wone the Hale "Aina Award in 1996 as
Best New Restaurant and Best Restaurant says, "While
I was growing up in Hawaii, my grandfather cooked Chinese
and my mother cooked Japanese, but she mingled in flavors
of Filipino, Chinese, Japanese and Hawaiian dishes."
Wong, who first attracted the dining public's notice
as chef of Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalow's Canoe
House Restaurant, was one of twelve Island chefs who
knew a good thing when he tasted it. In 1992, these
innovative chefs formed Hawaii Regional Cuisine, Inc.
One of their aims was to support local agriculture as
a liaison between the culinary and agricultural communities
and to promote Hawaii's cuisine out of state. Chefs
from the group have appeared on television's "Great
Chefs," they have cooked at the prestigious James
Beard House in New York, and many of them have published
their own cookbooks. Sam Choy, who owns Sam Choy's Restaurant
and Catering in Kailua-Kona, is among the most recognizable.
Choy has published three cookbooks and expanded to Oahu,
where his Kapahulu restaurant is extraordinarily popular.
This year he plans to open another Oahu restaurant,
a family-style dinner and crab house at 580 North Nimitz
Highway near downtown Honolulu.
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Roy Yamaguchi was another of the original daring dozen,
whose Euro-Asian interpretations earned him the James
Beard Award for the Pacific and Northwest Region in
1993. In addition to operating ten restaurants, including
the Big Island's Roy's Waikoloa Bar and Grill, this
energetic chef hosts a weekly cooking show that airs
on KHET every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. This season, several
segments showcase Big Island enterprises: lobster aquaculture,
fishing, coffee farming and the Macadamia Nut Festival
in Hilo.
On the Big Island, numerous resort chefs have since
discovered the advantages of using local products. At
the Hilton Waikoloa Village, all the restaurants use
local ingredients: mint grown at Bree Farm in Waimea,
sprouts from Lone Palm in North Kohala, bananas from
Keau, and Kona Cold Lobster from Keahole, but regional
cuisine is the particular focus at the Kona Provision
Company, a lovely indoor-outdoor restaurant where diners
sometimes spot whales breaching offshore. Here Chef
Patrick Heymann bakes an imaginative Keahole lobster
lasagna made with goat cheese from the Hamakua area
for lunch, while at dinner the Hukilau Pie is melange
of Island fish, shrimp, scallops and Keahole lobster
sauteed in a garlic and wine sauce, topped with tomatillo
sauce and baked au gratin encircled by mashed potatoes.
This dish has got to be called regional cuisine; to
be considered "local food," it would have
to be served with rice!
At another established resort, Kona Village, Executive
Chef Glenn Alos oversees an outdoor luncheon buffet,
two restaurants and a luau. Every outlet features distinctly
different flavors but all have a touch of the Islands
in their ingredients: the upscale Hale Samoa offers
Pacific Rim presentations, Hale Moana features American-style
cuisine with regional touches and the outdoor luncheon
buffet has casual Island-style dining. The Kona Village
luau especially is known as one of the finest in the
islands not only because of its outdoor setting under
palm trees surrounded by lagoons, but because the kalua
pork (from pigs raised on the island) comes out of the
undergrond oven tender and moist, and other items are
authentic luau fare - opihi, squid luau and chicken
long rice among them. Luau food is considered "local-style"
rather than regional cuisine.
In Kona, Daniel Thiebaut, who established a stellar
reputation for a more sophisticated version of classy
Island cuisine years ago when he opened Palm Cafe, last
year moved to head up The Tropics restaurant at the
Royal Kona Resort. Guests might choose to eat at The
Tropics initially because it boasts beautiful sunsets
and is conveniently located in their hotel, but once
they try the oven-roasted sea scallops in light coconut
milk-curry sauce garnished with tropical fruit marmalade
or the vegetarian parsley and corn cake with Kona-grown
field greens and Thai curry vinaigrette, they come back
again and again for the food.
At the nearby Keauhou Beach Hotel's kuakini Terrace,
Island-style cuisine emerges from butter lettuces and
other produce grown by Maluhia Farms in Captain Cook
and fish caught by local fishermen in the surrounding
waters. Buffet nights in the ocean-view dining room
might feature local seafood done with a Hawaiian flavor.
But regional cuisine isn't served in resort hotels exclusively.
You can enjoy regional styles in restaurants that range
from down-home, to sophisticated, to tropical-resort
in ambiance. David Palmer's chic but casual Cafe Pesto
at Kawaihae was so successful after it opened in 1989,
that he opened a second casual-chic eatery in Hilo in
1993. Palmer believes freshness is the key to flavor,
whether it be in pizza made with fresh basil pesto or
in seafood risotto featuring sweet Thai chili and Hawaiian
spiny lobster, scallops and prawns.
In decidedly rural Hawi, the tropical-themed Bamboo
Restaurant makes you feel as if you've stumbled on the
set of South Pacific, with waitress Aunty Mary Cabrilera,
who looks like Bloody Mary decked out in a little straw
hat. Fresh orchids, bamboo, ferns and walls painted
with tropical foliage make you want to tie on a lava
lava and go barefoot in Paradise - the nice thing is,
at the Bamboo Restaurant, you can. To attract local
people, owners, Joan and Jim Channon introduced easy-on-the-pocketbook
"Kohala Night" every Tuesday with some specials
priced at $6. Says Joan, "Our regional cuisine
combines flavors from around the Pacific. We're famous
for our chicken satay potstickers that have a Thai flavor
in a Chinese dumpling served with sweet chili-mint sauce.
We also do a seared poke with pipinola shoots - pipinola
is a native Hawaiian squash shoot."
Big Island farmers are among the leaders in producing
specialty crops that chefs stir into regional cuisine
dishes, possibly because more land at cheaper prices
is available since the demise of the sugar industry,
than on other islands. In any case, farmers, fishermen
and aquaculturists produce, raise and supply macadamia
nuts, Hawaiian Vintage chocolate, hydroponic lettuce,
Kona coffee, Puna goat cheese, Kona Cold Lobsters, Sparkle
greens, taro, and fish such as ahi (tuna), shutome (swordfish),
opah (moonfish), and opakapaka (snapper) that make Hawaii's
cuisine unique.
As recently as 20 years ago, international gourmands
would never have believed that pig and poi, shoyu and
somen, dim sum and daikon could blend in Hawaii's melting
pot to produce a regional cuisine as distinctive and
delicious as the Creole or Southwestern styles found
on the Mainland. Today, travelers and Islanders know
Hawaii's sunshine means more than just a perfect day
at the beach, it also translates to verdant fields and
a growing season that produces picture-perfect regional
cuisine year round
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Story
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