Meaty Faraway Fare: Hawaiian Meatballs

Many choices come to mind when it's food that is local Hawaii food, but people might not exactly know how it is. Hawaii Italian is a curious sort of food, since it is clearly American-Italian, but also Local Cuisine, with a sprinkle of exotic marriages of cuisines until it turned into something not all that authentic. It can be really hard to say that something is Italian without pausing for a bit, because it doesn’t really sound right, but it surely is delicious! There are al dente pastas that hit the spot, but there are also overcooked pastas that complete a plate lunch. The pizza that a person is ordering that people might think is Hawaii is one that has pineapples, but actually it is the one that makes use of delicious Kalua or other nicely toasty delicacies. While it is historically speaking part of the Haole food ladder it isn’t only that, because the people that cooked it had defined it in the middle of the Pacific. 

Misunderstood Mainland, the mainland was often misunderstood in Hawaii as it was glorified through marketing campaigns through consumed goods. Seeing magazines that showed a really nice macaroni and cheese, a sizzling plate with steaming meat loaf covered in red sauce, or nicely sliced sandwiches with chicken crusted in cheese, and people dressed to please with a city skyline in the background waiting in line for a nice meal. There were always Kalamata black olives in salads and Castelvetrano pitted olives that took a jump from jar to a dirty martini. When going to the city there were people in suits and ties that would enjoy some of these, but most of them were those who were in town looking for something tasty from the mainland itself. What it did do is set the stage for people to consume the product, understanding the freshness of the bite, and maybe not ask where it came from. People rather not talk about the controversies of a food if they like it, so people's beliefs would stick to what they saw on the advertisements. 

After eating what was seen as a visual might not be as satisfying as the person thought and it is at that moment that the flavors, the eats, and the story of the food is something that is as much a part of us as what we eat. The dishes would have to change and with those dishes people would go on to enjoy the people who would elevate the dishes and showcase them in a way that other places in the world wouldn’t dare to do. To see where the food took a turn through community and culture is to look at the ingredients and the people behind the cooking. It’s the only way to understand how the food continued to be around this long without disappearing from people's palettes and cravings. The basics had come from a mixture of comfort and those in the hospitality business. 

Hawaiian Meat Balls, The Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Surfrider (1938) served "Continental Cuisine" that showed things like Salami Sausages, Spaghetti Italienne, and Minestrone appearing as options alongside Irish stews and Hawaiian poi. It was not so much about the continental cuisine per se, but what that exposure did for the people who ate it… it wouldn’t be like the other sorts of foods… It was exotic. They would appear even more during world war II as Hawaii had a massive influx of Military folk from the East Coast. It was they who created a demand for familiar "red sauce" dishes, so it wouldn’t be uncommon to start seeing "Spaghetti and Meatballs" at restaurants that catered to those crowds. Frank Sinatra was looking up to hit a joint that served some lovely Italian foods, so he would go into a place called Matteo's. There was a place he would fly away for that would make Meat Balls, they were browned in an olive-oil crust, it was a sauce that made him feel alive, the round plump balls of meat that he would fancy was only at Casagnolas.

"Frank Sinatra air flew meat balls across the Pacific. He couldn't find that taste in Hollywood at the well refined places, or even from his mothers recipe. Speaking of that he also had a thing for New York meat balls too, but he was in the mood for some Hawaiian Fare. He went for something he could only get there. The lovely meat balls, Bolla Wine, and Sauces. Loaded into crates on Christina II, his famously named gulf stream jet, and just like that he would fly away that night."