the two food cultures of hawaii
For years, I have been drawn to the Hawaiian Islands not only for the climate and sugar-white (or volcanic black) beaches but for the food. America’s 50th state boasts as salad bowl of ingredients rarely found in the continental 48, (or, if they are available, are shipped in from foreign countries either almost unrecognizably bruised and overripe or impossibly under ripe). I’d always assumed that Hawaiians were among the luckiest–and best fed–of all Americans.
But last week, on a trip to Kauai and Oahu, I took the time to observe the local food traditions and what I realized was that Hawaii has two utterly opposing food cultures.
I first took note when I heard a news piece on local school food, spurred by a current statistic on the number of obese Hawaiian youngsters. I was startled, wondering how it could be that Hawaiian children, of all Americans, could be obese. Here they were, living in a state literally surrounded by fish, one of the finest sources of lean protein on earth, trees littering every street and lane loaded with fruits and nuts for the taking the whole year through. It is the sort of diet I know, after writing The Love Diet, is ideal for a healthy libido, sexy body and the kind of skin that looks good enough to eat.
Because I was staying in a condo rather than a resort and choosing my three meals at stores and markets every day, I know that the offerings at both Hawaii’s abundant farmers’ markets and grocery stores are bountiful and affordable. (The fruits, I should clarify, are quite affordable at the farmers’ markets as well as roadside stands and trees in the wild. At the grocery store, fruit prices can, to be quite honest, be staggering.)
So I started watching the locals, trying to figure out where the news story came from, observing what the construction workers pulled out of their lunch sacks, what the local crowd gathered at the tables outside my neighborhood Foodland ate before heading to work. I started to see that many of the locals passed on fruit in favor of foods like white rice, sausage and spam.
But then I visited Steelgrass Farm, http://www.steelgrass.org, a sustainable operation on the North Shore of Kauai started by one of the island early mission families. The farm is an oasis of good eating, cultivating such artisan goodies as vanilla, honey, guava, lychee, soursop, avocado and citrus. It even serves as a cacao nursery for a cooperative of local chocolate growers. The staff at Steelgrass, who all believe in sustainable farming and eating, explained to us that in Hawaii, any fruits grown on the side of the road is there for the taking and you should feel free to help yourself, (which I later did, I can assure you!) The farm put me in touch with a movement to return to small farming and the cultivation of ingredients that are traditionally a part of Hawaii’s cuisine.
So how is it that much of Hawaii’s working class and their youth strayed from this food? At first, while watching the locals at the store and in town near the condo I was renting for a week in Kauai’s north, I thought that perhaps the diet had evolved to include both local fruits and fish with the rich foods that are more sustaining for a day of surfing or construction work like loco moco (a freakish combo of eggs, meat, rice and gravy that is considered a distinctly Hawaiian breakfast). But following my time on Kauai, I flew to Oahu and took a drive up the West Coast. The road that travels up this piece of coastline has little to offer tourists beyond spectacular waves; the coast is too rough for swimming much of the year and there are no resorts or condos, strip malls or famous chefs. What there is, are lines of beaches on one side of the road, dotted with modest homes and trailers. On the other side of the road, I was horrified to discover, is a nearly endless line of fast food restaurants with nary a single grocery store, fish shop or fruit stand for miles. The evidence that this is how the locals of this working class community eat can be found all over the beach. I couldn’t go five feet without tripping over a Big Mac wrapper, Coke bottle or KFC tub in the sand. So much for paradise!
This, I realized combine with a local craving for spam, rice and gravy, is why the American state with the finest outdoor activities, most incredible fruits and very best fish has a population of obese youth, (and a diet, that I knew from years of promoting aphrodisiacs, that would turn those among the next generation who survive long enough into impotent, sexual enhancement-popping adults).
I do not know how it happened that Hawaii’s population split into these two, polar opposite food cultures. But it is my hope that those who continue to eat in the manner of native Hawaiians, celebrating the state’s sustainable foods, begin to teach what I’ve come to think of as the culture of lost Hawaiians, the wisdom of those who came before and the preservation efforts of those who love this place and its natural bounty. (The sex drive of an entire state is counting on them!)
