Multigenerational: Ohana Family Heritage of Hawaii Cuisine

 

Commonly known as Local Food, Hawaiian style food, or Modern Hawaii Food, food favorites have no color or racial beginnings. All those who worked at the plantation gathered together to make the best kind of food with what they had and that became Hawaii's food favorites by taking whats best of each of the cultures, mixing it up, and turning it into something different which was local food. Everyone use to eat together during the plantation days, due to everyone being very poor, so surviving with coworkers was essential to eating a meal or starving.

In essence many dishes which are popular today are poor mans food that became favorites over time. Whatever you could find, or whatever what was left over from the meal before became your next meal with a mix mash of multi cultural foods. The dishes which were tasty were made again, and the ones which weren't as tasty were not repeated.

Many turn to pot lucks to have a source of reference to what a meal during the plantation days was like when you had some money to burn. The meal itself brings with it a good mood kinda feel, a understanding group, and a welcoming sense of aloha, regardless of whatever might be not the perfect situation of family that might be seen as dysfunctional from outside is taken in as a good family during the time of sharing food to create a greater sense of family.

The Local Food of Kama’aina Eaters: Hawaii’s remarkable ethnic and racial diversity in its food from the plantation immigration has made Hawaii similar to an idea of a American Singapore of food. If you look around the island you can find all sorts of restaurants, from American, Hawaiian, Okinawan, Puerto Rican, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and each of them have found their own little nitch of people who enjoy eating their foods either the authentic way of cooking from their home countries or the renown changes of those who took root in Hawaii many years ago to make the food become something different and Local.

Globalization has brought other restaurants over like: Taiwanese, Vietnamese, French, Italian, Louisiana-regional cuisine, and the list keeps on growing over time. Its really a place you can taste many parts of the world with authenticity or with the local touch. And as many other places nationally there are foods that are brought over through franchises that make their way to the islands as well.

Roaming Dishes: A few roaming dishes found their way from house to house as it was passed around as a recipe card or from the popular word of mouth. People share their secrets with only a few friends and family and they each do things a little different and have their own style of local Hawaii cuisine that they know to be the familiar family foods that are served. These dishes are what would eventually be the start of what we now know as Hawaii food or local food to the kama’aina (hawaii residents).

There are a mixture of foods that are just accepted as the locals foods due to its historical past. For example many Hawaiian foods were the basis of local foods and as immigration moved on with time the food followed suit to show the history through the good dishes. There are colonial dishes from the trading ports and the missionaries all the way to the modern day food found in homes and restaurants.

It starts from ethnic diverse cultures from the different races that have made up Hawaii's food. As it gets more mixed the food becomes a really unique type of cuisine that makes Hawaii's Cuisine fascinating and different from other states in the United States. That experience of food makes it feel really local as a identity of the place and the food then belongs and is included with the land. As many other food cultures the local food is always evolving and ever changing landscape of foods in the Hawaii Cuisine scene.

Experiencing Food from Multicultural Roots: Foods segregation was made from the plantations that started with the separation of workers with housing for each different ethnic group with respect of some of the architecture, traditions, and foods as they worked the plantations. However, because all the different ethnicities worked with each other and bonded through interacting through broken english with pidgeon english there was a mix in foods as well. All the workers were said to have sat around during the break and ate foods and sometimes would share their food to have a more diverse lunch, sometimes to bond with other workers and feel like teammates on the fields, sometimes as a mark of offering to start a discussion.

This segregation of foods was also apparent when there were different types of restaurants and plate lunch places like; Korean Plate Lunch, Okazuya Restaurant, Japanese Restaurant, Chinese Restaurant, and Local Plate Lunch. Once you start eating the Ethnic food in Hawaii the local food even works its ways in the forms of the ethnic restaurants. A local food that brings about many strange looks are Meat Juhn. Many people in Hawaii grow up with Meat Juhn and buy into the idea that it is Korean, but people who come from the mainland and people from Korea are completely confused what Meat Juhn is... because secretly its a local thing... its a Hawaii dish that changed from its korean roots.

This has happened with many other foods as well like Miso Peanut Butter Chicken... and Baked Manapua. It goes past the original mimicry of copying other cultural foods and starts building off local ingredients, local tastes, and delicious outcomes of some great dishes. The previous cooks were making simple comfort foods that could stretch the test of time with the ideas of plantation. Todays cooks are trying to describe the local food that makes up the Hawaii cuisine to find the cooking identity of the geological area to push the idea of what is the food of the people of the islands.

Hawaii and its own Cuisine: The foods of Hawaii cuisine bring obvious joy to the people who eat it, but the interest is coming from the outside. Japan and the United States are expanding the category and place of what defines Hawaiis food culture and cuisine. This is being done with the restaurants opening up that no longer have the vintage tiki theme and menus that reflect Hawaiis greatest hits of dishes that are flavorful and from Hawaii.

But what is local for food? What is a local plate lunch? If you take a look at a place thats a Drive In or a Plate Lunch Shop you will see that alot of it is a mix mash of multiple cultures food in one place. The menu will explain the Hamburger Steak or Loco Moco that is inspired from American food, Chicken katsu that is from Japanese style, Kalua Pork and Cabbage from Hawaiian style, Shoyu Pork from Okinawan, or maybe Kalbi Short Ribs from Korean Style, and the list goes on. Its really all mixed up. No other dish marks this better than the loco moco, since it really just means "Local Mix".

The Growth in Hawaii Food: It shows the evolution of the food from separate ethnic foods to a mixed up food. Local food is challenging to understand, since the segregation of restaurants makes it feel like separate identities of food. But really they may have different ethnic labels, but many dishes have come to identify Hawaii. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside... like a China-man from China to identify what isn't classically Chinese. A person from Korea to show us that something like Meat Juhn isn't really a thing outside of Hawaii. A mainland American to point out that our Chile and Beans is weird in its creamy addiction.

The overall feeling of home and feeling of being local finds itself from being apart of the food culture that is with the foods that you mostly find only in the Islands. The local food is a great thing that will continue to connect us as Kama’aina and will spread the Hawaii food with its growing Hawaii Cuisine with much Aloha.

So What is Hawaii Cuisine?: ​Hawaii cuisine, the first ideas that come to mind are Hawaiian dishes of pineapples, coconuts, ham, mai tais, and fresh seafoods which isn't wrong, but is only a small portion of the rich culinary culture of the islands. The food scene started with the travel industry with some of the best talents being in hotels and then the food scene also developed through ethnic immigrants. And globalization and through its effects had transformed with the times to stay relevant to modern tastes.

Seasonal Ingredients: Many Ingredients remain regional for sustainability, some are imported for its costs, and seasons are not substantial in its changes. Through all the local residents known as kama'aina the cooking style, food identity, and eating style have gone in a particular direction. Encompassing the timeline of foods by the regional, historic, and traditional foods of Hawaii are the stepping stones of the basis of Hawaii Cuisine. They have developed through economic, residential, and social changes.

Varieties of Hawai'i Cuisine: Traditional "Native Hawaiian Cuisine" based on taro and other dishes emphasizing sustainability of ingredients, to "Hawaii Local Cuisine" that brought mixed ethnic foods that melted together to make unique takes on dishes that are specific to Hawaii, and lastly. The regional foods are called "Regional Hawaiian Cuisine" and offer a geological array of specialties. All of which are referred to under the category of Hawaiian Cuisine and more accurately Hawaii Cuisine to separate race from region.

Local Cuisine organized by regionality is: Oahu Cuisine, Big Island Cuisine, Maui Cuisine, Kauai Cuisine, Niihau Cuisine, Molokai Cuisine, and Lanai Cuisine.

​Local Cuisine organized from historic inspiration are: Hawaiian-American, Japanese-Hawaii, Okinawan-Hawaii, Filipino-Hawaii, Polynesian-Hawaii, Chinese-Hawaii, Portuguese-Hawaii, Korean-Hawaii, Puerto Rican-Hawaii, and Vietnamese-Hawaii

History: During the contact period the cuisine developed in the plantation with workers who used "Kau Kau Tins" with sides, starch, and main food item for a multicourse meal that people begun to identify separate cuisines as their own hawaii-ethnic cuisines that transformed later into local cuisine. Hawaiian Royalty ate aristocratic meals featuring french cuisine which had influence of the cuisine as well with the hotels bringing continental food dishes. 

​Travels had made tourists hungry for Hawaii like foods with Polynesian flair that brought Tiki Restaurants on the mainland and a search for a local point of view towards identifying Hawaii cuisine. The development of the cuisine made its way from an unrespected and unorganized cuisine to a respected cuisine through the exposure and efforts of the H.R.C group in formalizing Hawaii cuisines identity.