The Hawaii Diet: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

 

The traditional Hawaii Diet is a diet rich in pork, seafood, vegetables, and other animal meats that are served alongside high-carbohydrates, salts, oil, and lower in sugars and fats. This is due to the multiethnic traditional diets that created a wide range of ethnic dishes that integrated into the basis of its “Hawaii Cuisine” under the grouping of “Hawaii Local Cuisine” that consists of all the multi-ethnic groups, finger foods, the freshness, and seasonal ingredients. This eating pattern would be layered on top of “Hawaiian Cuisine” which is High energy, digestion, and various health depending on foods consumed. 

When european, asian, and polynesian foods were grouped up together of the modern foods being consumed it would be the “Hawaii Diet”. How to follow the Hawaii Diet is following a very broad idea of staple foods combined with a starch, a main dish, and sizable sides. (1) Staple Foods: steamed rice, taro poi, tossed greens, or fried saimin, (2) Starch: macaroni salad, potato salad, long rice, mashed tubers. (3) Main dish: meat, poultry, stews, with optional small amounts of fish, seafood, vegetables. (4) Sizable sides: pickled things, seaweed, fruits, eggs. It creates a food grouping that is very distinct as it was once its own country. 

Hawaii meals are known for their salty umami flavor that sometimes incorporates sweetness, sourness, or bitter for a layered taste that is simple in appearance and complex to the palette. Visual appeal of perceived size has been important to the Hawaii diet with dishes being generous in portion sizes. Dishes tend to be eaten and packed away, so that it can be eaten later, as this method is believed to extend the length of a meal and allow for great consideration of accompanying dishes that are for the next meal.

Hawaii Breakfast: No matter where in the country you go or place in general everyone around the world has their own take on what they eat for breakfast. Breakfast fills you up as a meal that gets you ready for the day ahead which in many cases was to work in agriculture or quickly in a ever growing city atmosphere. With taro (kalo), rice, and bread being the staple food starches in Hawaii there are a variety of dishes that are available and many take on an authentic Hawaii breakfast menu. But as time went on there were saimin noodles, Hawaii pancakes, sweet bread, and cereal that became other popular options for breakfast as there were changing tastes of people who lived in Hawaii. So, what do people in modern Hawaii eat for breakfast? When asking people on the street there were responses like: sausage with scrambled eggs and rice, fish with sweet bread and poi, spam musubis, a warm bowl of saimin, and another said a breakfast plate like loco moco. At home rice, bread, noodles, and poi were apart of the peoples meals. As many people become more busy for a desire to sleep in there are many who will grab a small bowl of left overs or not eat breakfast at all in growing number due to modern lifes demands.

In the olden days people would eat breakfast with their family in the morning, but as people became more busy there had been a growing number of people eating out. As there were more roads built and more highways and more people the islands became quite busy and people would spend hours in traffic. This created a sort of rush in the morning for people to get ready for work, drop off their kids, and get through traffic all the while thinking of something to eat as they wake up or while they are on the road making their way to their workplace. The Hawaiian diet is one of the healthiest diets in the world with originally being simply fish and poi with some seaweed as a sort of example ideal. There are still people who include such dishes in their breakfasts more in the country side rather then large urban areas of Hawaii and it is those who eat traditionally that keep those practices alive. Lets look at some of the more common dishes eaten in the traditional hawaiian breakfast.

Traditional Hawaiian Breakfast: A Traditional Hawaiian Breakfast, pounded taro poi, grilled fish or grilled meat, limu seaweed with pickled onion and garlic, salted lomi i'a, and pipikaula which is a sort of dried meat. A traditional Hawaiian breakfast often times features taro because of its importance in dietary fiber for improved digestion and weight loss with high levels of vitamins while being accompanied by fish that has healthy omega-3 fatty acids or other health benefits. Some of fish eaten for breakfast are: Mahimahi Dolphin Fish, Kawakawa Mackeral Tuna, Akule Big Eye Scad, and 'Opelu Mackeral Scad. These days it is common to have the fish fried and salted, and while it isn't healthy it tastes even better when dipped into the poi.The Pickled Onions may not be what the ancient Hawaiians had eaten it has become apart of the traditional breakfast due to its preservative nature like salted meats, dried meats. Those who live near the sea or have the ocean closer to them tend to take care of seaweed and pickle the seaweed for preservation as well, so they eat that as well with the onions if it is available. The ingredients used in the traditional Hawaiian breakfast take a long time to prepare ingredients that have a long shelf life can take a lot of time that people who live closer to the city rather spend the same energy on something else, but luckily those who live in the country sides still eat these sorts of meals.

Breakfast Plate: Breakfast Plate, there are lots of locals who enjoy a big breakfast that comes in the form of a plate lunch in its plate form called a "breakfast plate". Breakfast plates come traditionally with two scoops of rice and when it comes to eating rice for breakfast it is commonly preferred as two scoops of fried rice. Along with the scoops of rice there are usually a sausage of some sorts that accompany them like: Portuguese Sausage, Vienna Sausage, Longanisa Sausage, Link Sausage, and often times this will be served with spam or bacon or even both which is sometimes called a "Deluxe Breakfast Plate". The Eggs also play an important role with being the symbol of a breakfast plate as it is common to the western breakfast it is equally as important to the Hawaii breakfast plate. Eggs were eaten for a long time from even the first westerns and probably even before then, but what really got people eating cooked eggs was from those who had them regularly available to them on the farm or near an egg farm. Eggs are eaten with the rice to give it a stronger savory type flavor and often times have shoyu on top of them for more saltiness that is typical of many Hawaii dishes. Variations are: poached egg, hard boiled egg, scrambled egg, overeasy egg, and sunnyside egg. The selection of meats and sides vary with the most common breakfast plate being Portuguese Sausage Eggs Rice accompanied with Spam. Other breakfast plates are: Link Sausage Bacon with over easy eggs and Fried Rice with luncheon meat, and people who want a hearty meal have fried garlic chicken that has scrambled egg and portuguese sausage along with bacon and fried rice.

Loco Moco: Hawaii cuisine is pretty laid back and high volume due to it being a quality of life sort of volume as a filling food and that also goes for breakfast. The Loco Moco is a pretty humble yet fatty dish that doesn't bring much attention to itself being brown gravy, a burger patty, and a egg, but if someone takes the time to look into this dish the amount of knowledge in this rarely talked about in detail dish goes farther then at first glance. Loco Moco that is a burger on top of rice that has gravy poured all over it and its topped with a sunnyside eggs and is a local favorite that is served all day long. With gravy being the standard sauce in Hawaii the flavor can vary and when its mixed with the egg and type of cooking style it changes once again and that doesn't even include the choice of meat to go with it. With different sorts of rice as well there are so many variations on this dish to try for breakfast or lunch and sometimes even as breakfast for dinner.

The meal that is most memorable tends to be lunch where its something bought in the morning and stored away in the work fridge or a nice plate lunch. The delicious phrase “that’s ono” can be commonly heard when downing some of the great multiethnic food that is eaten and enjoyed to its fullest extent with its two select starches and the two select sides and the two main selections that is completely stuffed. A lunch is going for an amount of food that seems almost like its too much and has a feeling of wanting to share, which many people say is from the plantation feeling that the plate is suppose to give off with the sharing vibes. The most common starches eaten on the menu for lunch is fried noodles, fried rice, and pasta. With people becoming more health conscious the popularity of stir-fried vegetables, lomi vegetables with salted seafood, and pickled things have become staples to lunch sides.

Here is peoples takes on what they think is the modern Hawaii eats they go to for lunch! The responses were pretty varied, but people do agree its a time to recuperate and relax a bit before heading back to the grind, so with that the mentioned dishes were: (1) chicken katsu, fried hoki, teriyaki beef, sassy greens, spicy poke, and steamed rice. (2) grilled chicken dipped in teriyaki, seasoned pulehu steak, grilled kajiki swordfish, macaroni salad, and fried saimin. (3) meat juhn, mahi mahi juhn, oyster juhn, kimchi cabbage, mayo potatoes, and furikake rice. (4) laulau, butterfish, kalua pork, salted salmon lomi salad, okinawan sweet potato, pickled limu onion, and fried rice. (5) Teriyaki hamburger deluxe with crinkle cut fries and green river, (6) a deli submarine sandwich, the last person asked would default to a comforting beef curry.

Eating at home would have rice, pasta, and mashed potatoes that are used alongside what was bought from a previous eatery that gave an abundance of food in a container for another meal. It is a luxury to be able to eat different things for lunch or meals with all sorts of options on them such as a mixed plate that has several main dishes in one and many sides and starches, so most plate lunches tend to have a single main dish and minimal sides and a single starch option. 

Modern Hawaiian Lunch: Pounded taro poi, fried fish or fried meat, kalua pork and cabbage with alaea salt, beef watercress soup with smoked octopus, pickled carrots and cabbage, tripe stew, long rice, steamed rice, and a poke selection. The pork that was eaten at lunch would be prepared in all sorts of ways with different types of pig farms having their own flavor based on their diet and way of life and the pork would be dipped into the poi alongside a salted lomi i’a or smoked lomi i’a. 

The amount of dishes in a traditional Hawaiian plate lunch has so many plates around the table family style and that makes for a closeness of family and the social practice was when the bowl of poi was on the table there was no negativity spoken. Because of the ease of getting musubis from convenience stores and sandwiches from deli shops alongside bentos from okazuya’s in Hawaii they have become many people's choice to go to spots. 

Hawaiian plates are for a time of indulgence and that is what separates it from the traditional Hawaiian diet that it would normally follow, but with healthy foods and older foods being more expensive the cheaper options tend to be unhealthy.

Lunch Plate: Lunch Plate or aka. Plate Lunch, the main worry is always about having enough for locals and the importance is to share and enjoy things from life with a big value lunch to feed each person or simply a “lunch plate”. Lunch plates come from the old school two scoops of rice that have changed to two starches over the years with the more variations and the preference for noodles. The most common things that would be served during the meal would be: Chicken Katsu, Meat Juhn, Teriyaki Beef, Kalua Pork, and garnishes would be pickled things or salted lomi i’a, but when there were many choices it would be called a "Mixed Plate". 

The Mayonnaise was important to pair nicely with the salty or crispy parts of a plate lunch and was known at first as an american condiment, but in mayonnaise salads its the main star. Mayonnaise is the basis for many dips, sauces, and salads, but in the early days many of these were mixed with eggs and an additional special-made sauce due to the popularity of “Deviled Eggs”. Variations are: spicy mayonnaise, mustard mayonnaise, relish mayonnaise, garlic mayonnaise, and teriyaki mayonnaise. The lunch plates that have more modern appeal that have become popular are: lawai’a mayo-salad, smoke tako mayo, scallop mayo, grilled fish mayonnaise.

Chicken Katsu: The Chicken Katsu is full of crispness with a pan-fry and is a dish that always calls for a sauce, boneless chicken thighs, and seasoning. The most popular and simple Hawaii cuisine lunch dish would be the chicken katsu that often would be plentiful with two fried katsu cut into bite sized pieces. There is usually the plain chicken katsu where people can dress it up as they like the sauce, but there were always those tastier katsus that were marinated with things to make them more tender, so there were always interesting variations out there. Chicken Katsu is what someone would get when they don’t really want to think about what to get and is used as a test of other plates as a test of quality so to speak, so because of this there are many places that marinate their meat or have a preparation for their chicken katsu to make it even better than people remember. With frying becoming more and more of an interest to keep costs down there chicken katsu isn’t alone and there are various katsus that are turning up from the old days like the old-school katsu scallops and oysters, laulau katsu, or the classic katsu fish, and that just lays the groundwork for the “Katsu Mixed Plate”.

Hawaii Dinner: Taking a look at people’s photos and their well-dressed for an occasion sort of ordeal its because night is a time is taken a little differently in the islands in the ways of dress, eating, and overall show of attitude, but in most family households this would be on special occasions or a once a week sort of thing at best. Hawaii Dinner would be something seen over and over again as it would be a time where the local people would see it as the sort of survival meal that had to be versatile and maneuver throughout the week and thats when people would have to get creative with the leftovers and dinners were all about those left overs that accumulated in the fridge. A Dinner might be made up of leftover ingredients and use things in the pantry to make: (1) steamed rice, slow-cooked pork pot roast, oyster-sauce green beans. (2) okinawan jushi rice, fried-mochiko chicken, soft cold-tofu, mixed green salad, miso soup. (3) kimchi lup cheong fried rice, island pan-fried pork chops, canned-spam asparagus stir-fry. (4) grilled catch-of-the-day, beer boiled octopus, fish-patties, grilled-eggplant, bok choy stir-fry, black bean crispy egg-noodles. (5) hawaii meatloaf, baked-spaghetti, mashed potatoes, canned-corn, buttered broccoli. (6) grilled chuck steak, garlic shrimp, grilled corn, sauteed buttered mushrooms, buttered peas, garlic steamed rice.

With the ever rising costs it isn’t strange for people to live off of oven baked chicken, rotisseries chicken, or just chicken bone soup for awhile before they can afford something a bit more substantial in the ways of meats. The purchasing habits of people usually are large quantities and with other meals there are portions that are frozen for another meal, because people get really tired of eating the same thing meal after meal and freezing portions really makes a difference in food choices of a family or person. If people have the choice of something other than rice they are likely to eat those starches during dinner to make it feel a bit different, but depending on what else is served the rice might actually still be preferred, but it can be a toss up instead of the usual must have rice on the menu train of thought for breakfast and lunch.

 Modern Hawaiian Dinner: Steamed Mullet, aku bone or salmon bone, lehua poi and mussels with smoke salt, limu opae salad in pickling liquid, chili pepper crab and green onions, lomi o’io, haupia or kulolo. The mullet has been told in oral histories with various sorts being raised in fish ponds with the ‘ama‘ama and would be stored in the freezer and seen as a treat for dinner with seasoned oil and steamed where a bowl of rice as well as poi would be made available. It would be difficult to have many traditional Hawaiian ingredients for a dinner and would be based on what would be caught or even what was grown and making things as dishes to be stored in the refrigerator would be necessary from different times people would come home from their job. Storage of mini laulau that is made in large batches is also something that people will have in their freezer or kalua pork that is already pre portioned ahead of time so that it can be heated up for individual consumption. Hawaiian dinners are suppose to remind the person that the families love is passed on through the food and that no one is going hungry no matter what time they coming home.

Dinner Dining: Dinner when it's in a restaurant will have some different things than the ready-to-go warm up meals and the several main family style shared dishes made for the local palette and those are the usuals as they say on the menu. Also it isn’t too much of a surprise that when eating out there might be a buffet people go to and eat at, so they can just keep on going back until they eat until they are tired or “Kanak Attack” as the locals call it. The most common classic dishes over the years that people see time and time again are: Slow-cooked Prime Rib, Surf (Buttered Lobster) and Turf (Palehu Sirloin Steak), Fish Tataki (Half Cooked), Hawaii Caesar Salad, Pasta, Kalua Pork or Fish Poke Nachos, Buttered Bread with a a Dip or Sauce, and all sorts of Starches.

The Starches are what create the setting of what sorts of foods are going to be with the meal based on the eaters expectations and that can start with the sort of rice served. If there is medium-grain sticky rice there are chances there are going to be a Local-Japanese dish in there, or if its long-grain there is an expectation of Local-Chinese flavors. Or if there is a Bread people might be looking for sauce of some sort, maybe something based from mayonnaise, yummy cheese, a butter sauce, or possibly a fancy sauce. If there are taro that is poi it might be seen as a sort of dip to accompany other dishes that are around like a lomi or a kalua dish, but a different take for dinner for a bit of wow factor. Restaurant venues tend to have: medium-grain mixed rice, long-grain fried rice, coconut sweet potato, bacon butter mashed potatoes, lomi salmon with poi, or a dip like crab-artichoke dip, or a cream-cheese based dip.

Prime Rib: The iconic Hawaii Prime rib is no joke as it is at the top of many locals idea of the prefect dinner meet with its thick, juicy, seasoned exterior. Going to any special event with a prime rib might make ideas of a succulent slice joined by a hot creamy sauce like garlic-horseradish, chili pepper mayo, or wasabi mayo that has au jus sauce on the side for the starches. Seeing other steaks are still great like the tomahawk, top sirloin, a new york cut, but it isn’t that sense of a tender prime rib that makes you think of evening dining. It doesn’t even have to be the largest piece ever seen, because there is also a pupu dish called “Prime Rib Pupu” that has a prime rib cut into cubes that can be dipped into all sorts of sauces. Pairings that work well with prime rib is usually: Shrimp, Scallops, King Crab Legs, or Mahi Mahi.