Written by Matt Dursum
On June 4, 1976, a double-hauled canoe named Hōkūle’a pulled into Papeete Harbor, Tahiti. Over 17,000 people greeted Captain Kawika Kapahulehua, Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, and their crew. The Hōkūle’a traveled 2,500 miles of open ocean from Hawaii to Tahiti, guided solely by a star compass, the sun, the wind, and the shifting currents.
When the Hōkūle’a returned to Hawaii on July 26, its voyage, organized by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, proved that ancient Polynesians navigated the entire Pacific and discovered Hawaii long before modern navigational instruments were invented. It ignited pride in Polynesian culture throughout the islands of the Pacific and fueled a movement in Hawaii that honored the legacy of Hawaiian cuisine.
Photo by Luke McKeown
To talk about modern Hawaiian cooking, you have to peel back its layers of immigration, starting with the Polynesians. In their double-hauled canoes, they brought pigs, chickens, and edible plants such as taro, sugarcane, banana, and breadfruit to Hawaii. On the islands, they discovered native ingredients like Hawaiian salt, limu, and kukui nut.
“Hawaiian Food is simple but slow. Kalua pig, fish, taro, etc. took time, but was healthy and simple.”
In the first Hawaiian kitchens, people wrapped meat in taro leaves and grilled it on stones or steamed it, creating a tender and flavorful dish called laulau. Along with smoked pork, salted fish, and seaweed, laulau became one of Hawaii’s earliest entrées and is still popular today. “Hawaiian Food is simple but slow. Kalua pig, fish, taro, etc. took time, but was healthy and simple. The main ingredient was Hawaiian salt for flavor,” says Lanai Tabura, actor, writer, and host of Cooking Hawaiian Style.
Ancient Hawaiians had no rice, bread, or potatoes. Instead, their carbohydrates came from poi. In Hawaiian kitchens across the islands, cooks prepare poi the same way the ancient Polynesians did over a thousand years ago. First, people gather taro, a large tuber vegetable with a slightly sweet and nutty flavor, and boil it until it’s soft. Next, the soft taro is mashed with water, usually on a large pestle and mortar called a papa ku’i ‘ai, until it becomes a mochi-like mash. Restaurants such as the Waiahole Poi Factory in Oahu top their poi with huge portions of laulau or kalua pig, similar to the meals the ancient Hawaiians enjoyed.
Poi, Luau salmon, Kalua pork, Pipikaula ribs and Lau lau –Photo by Emily Leung, source: Flickr, license CC BY-SA 2.0
Hawaii’s food culture developed around the concept of Pili, the Hawaiian word for connected. Pili refers to the bond between communities, the land (aina), and the sea (Ke kai).
With Pili as inspiration, ancient Hawaiians developed complex food systems to support up to a million people living on the island chain with finite resources. Systems such as the loko iʻa fishponds provided sustainable food that could last through disasters and food shortages.
“Definitely, the immigration to Hawaii for the sugar plantations changed the menu for Hawaii.”
As advanced as the ancient Hawaiians were in food production, nothing could prepare them for the changes coming in the 18th century. In 1778, a ship full of European colonizers led by Captain James Cook pulled into Waimea Bay, Oahu. This first contact with the outside world devastated the islands. Diseases ripped through communities, killing hundreds of thousands of people and leaving the islands vulnerable to invaders.
In an act to bring the islands together for strength and security, King Kamehameha I formed the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. Lāhainā, on the west coast of Maui, was chosen as its capital. Shortly after the islands unified, the first waves of missionaries arrived, bringing their Christianity, cuisine, and profit-driven agricultural industries like sugar with them.
Sugar cane – Photo by Clyde Robinson, source: Flickr, license CC BY 2.0
Sugar is labor intensive and Hawaii’s decimated population was not enough to run the growing plantations. Under the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society and the foreign landowners’ request, the islands opened to foreign labor. “Definitely, the immigration to Hawaii for the sugar plantations changed the menu for Hawaii,” says Tabura. Immigrant workers from China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, and Puerto Rico came to work the plantations between 1800 and 1900. “They brought all their specialty foods, and we adopted them.”
The communal nature and concept of Pili led to the different ethnic groups sharing their recipes. Plantation workers replicated the comfort food of their homelands with local ingredients and adopted other flavors and techniques. People ate poi with Portuguese bread, Chinese noodles, or Japanese rice balls. Chinese immigrants created manapua, meaning ‘delicious pork thing’, made with shredded pork marinated in soy sauce, five-spice powder, vinegar, and sugar, stuffed in a pillow-like bao bun.
Photo by Karsten Winegeart
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Hawaii entered a series of conflicts that would change its cuisine and society forever. The first conflict started when missionaries and white plantation owners put Queen Liliʻuokalani under house arrest. Her brother David Kalākaua, ascended the throne for 13 years until an armed mob aggressively forced him to sign a new constitution, taking away Native Hawaiian rights to their land and giving the islands to the white missionaries and plantation owners. When Queen Liliʻuokalani was freed, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to plead for help just as the U.S. entered the Spanish-American War. Seeing Hawaii as the perfect location for a military base to expand American control of the Pacific and take Spanish territories, President William McKinley annexed the islands under the control of the United States and ended Hawaiian sovereignty.
“The war introduced us to canned food like spam, Vienna sausage, etc. They became staples because they were cheap and even free.”
As a military outpost for the U.S., Hawaii received waves of settlers from the mainland and U.S. territories such as the Philippines. The islands were marketed as a beacon of tropical life, fun in the sun, surfing, and beach culture. Americans brought their breads, burgers, and love for meat to the islands, creating a new mainland-inspired diet.
SPAM Musubi – Photo by Lorie Shaull, source: Flickr, license CC BY 2.0
As more mainland Americans settled in Hawaii looking for the perfect life, the world entered WWII. In 1941, several squadrons of Japanese aircraft attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. and Hawaii into the global conflict. “The war introduced us to canned food like spam, Vienna sausage, etc. They became staples because they were cheap and even free,” says Tabura.
After the war, SPAM Musubi entered the scene. Based on traditional Japanese rice ball recipes, SPAM Musubi takes SPAM marinated in soy sauce and places it on a ball of short-grain rice wrapped delicately with a bow of nori.
Hawaiian Plate Lunch – Photo by Arnold Gatilao, source: Flickr, license CC BY 2.0
One of the biggest Hawaiian food traditions to come out of the war was the plate lunch. Two scoops of short grain rice — the kind popularized by Japanese immigrants in the late 19th century — plated with a protein, often Japanese-style chicken katsu and Hawaiian macaroni salad, simply called mac salad. Unlike dishes like Loco Moco, Hawaiian mac salad’s origins are poorly documented. “Some say the missionaries, most say World War II. With the influx of military visitors and cheap meals, the mac salad was introduced and became part of the plate lunch,” says Tabura.
During the late 20th century, each island created signature dishes. “Molokai is famous for its bread, Maui for Guri Guri ice cream. Oahu — the malasadas donut, Kauai — old school saimin, and the Big Island — coffee, mac nuts, and Loco Moco,” says Tabura. A variation of Chinese noodle soup, called saimin, became a 20th-century classic, with toppings like kimchi, Japanese fishcakes, Portuguese linguiça sausage, and SPAM.
Photo by Dustin Belt
Today, Hawaiian food is global, with Hawaiian-inspired restaurants, TV shows, and cookbooks bringing the flavors of Hawaii to people who’ve never set foot on the islands. “Hawaii is such a huge destination of celebration. Not only are the guests intrigued by our culture, which I believe a big part is food, but with all the big chefs and TV shows coming to film, you can see how it has evolved,” says Tabura.
In far-away places like Brazil and South Africa, you can find restaurants specializing in poke. In its basic form, poke was around in pre-contact times. Ancient Hawaiians seasoned raw fish with Hawaiian sea salt, seaweed, and kukui (candlenut). In the 1960s and 1970s, fueled by the growing popularity of sushi and Japanese cuisine, chefs and home cooks around Hawaii started experimenting with this classic dish. Chef Sam Choy is credited with inventing the poke bowls’ final form in the 1970s. Choy bought fresh ahi tuna, cut it up into cubes, marinated it in a soy sauce and sesame seed oil-based sauce, and topped it with edamame and other flavorful extras. The dish is now Hawaii’s biggest culinary export.
Poke – Photo by Sebastian Doll
As the world’s tastebuds transfix on Hawaiian cuisine, more locals are looking back to their roots. Groups such as Kua are pushing to bring back Native Hawaiian community-based solutions to its food problems, such as the reliance on food imports, which make up roughly 90% of food on the islands. Local chefs and celebrities are also doing their part to bring Hawaiian cuisine and food production back to its roots, without sacrificing the layers of contributions made by the groups of immigrants who came to the islands for a better life.
Since its maiden voyage, the Hōkūle‘a sailed around the Pacific, from Hawaii to Tahiti, and to the distant shores of Rapa Nui, the furthest island in the Polynesian world. Like the Hōkūle‘a voyages, Hawaiian cuisine has ignited a movement of pride in Hawaiian culture, culinary history, and the old ways of sustainable agriculture.
The Hawaiian saying, “E pū paʻakai kākou,” meaning ‘let’s share salt together’ refers to the bond people can have with strangers over food. Hawaiian cuisine from SPAM musubi, poke, and kalua pork, was formed from a bond between different groups of people who call the islands home.