The Mixed Plate

A classic staple here in the 50th is what’s known as the mixed plate. You’ll find it at every local drive-inn and basically consists of two scoops of rice, one scoop of macaroni salad and your choice of mixed proteins such as teriyaki beef, pork or chicken, fried tonkatsu or chicken katsu, beef stew or curry, chili or literally any main dish that’s created in the 50th. It’s thought to have origins during the plantation days where workers while separated by ethnic living areas or “camps” during the evenings interacted during the lunch or dinner breaks observing and sharing each other’s food. So the Chinese and Filipino workers saw and tasted Japanese musubi and teriyaki while the Filipino and Japanese workers saw and tasted Chinese stir fry and kau yuk while the Japanese and Chinese workers saw and sampled Filipino adobo and pancit. A mixture of foods from different cultures all on one plate which continues today.

This mixture of different cultural influences is also evident in that classic Hawaiian feast or luau. Traditionally, a baby’s first birthday is cause for a large celebration whether you identify as Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese or any mixtures of ethnic groups you identify with. But the food served at these celebrations are usually classic luau cuisine such as kalua pig (underground steamed/smoked whole roasted pig), lau-lau (steamed pork wrapped in taro and ti leaves), poi (steamed then mashed taro root) and haupia (coconut cream custard). But you’ll also find chicken long rice which I’m sure is either Chinese or Japanese in origin and lomi salmon which is salted, minced salmon with minced raw white onions, green onions and tomatoes which aren’t Hawaiian in origin.

Stolen Identity? Apparently, the traditional Hawaiian dish of cubed, raw fish mixed with salt and chopped seaweed has been adopted into many cultures even here in the 50th. Often poke (pronounced as po-keh, not po-kee which is Gumby’s orange buddy) can be found with raw yellow onions or green onions, which likely wasn’t in the original rendition, shoyu and tobiko, which likely came from Asian immigrants and even mayonnaise which is definitely a Western influence. I’ve even seen stateside versions with corn, cooked grains, guacamole and salad greens. Since poke simply means to slice or cut, whatever accoutrements you add that floats your boat is fine with me. However, I do take issue when you try to copyright the word poke along with other Hawaiian words… like aloha when you and your product aren’t even based in the 50th and send “cease and desist” letters to actual Hawaiian businesses. One of my favorite versions of the original poke is when it’s mixed with natto and fukuzinzuke over vinegared rice for a natto poke bowl. I also enjoy a relatively new addition to raw seafood whether served as poke or sashimi, chopped Salicornia maritima more commonly known as sea beans or sea asparagus. They give a refreshing crunch and salinity that perfectly complements raw seafood the same way Gracillaria seaweed (ogo) or sweet raw onions give a pleasing crunch.

Cultural Mash-Up on a Pie I’m taking about America’s favorite pie, the pizza pie. CPK created an empire placing American barbecue chicken on the traditional Italian staple and hasn’t looked back since then. I’ve seen many renditions substituting barbecue sauce in place of the traditional red sauce covered in smoked proteins like pulled pork, brisket and sausage. Sometimes, I eschew any tomato based sauce covering the dough with ginger and green onion pesto then adding proteins like char siu chicken or pork and drizzling with diluted hoisin sauce and adding just enough cheese to hold the toppings in place. Definitely not a pie that you would find in Naples. Or creating a thick ragu of ground lamb with warm, savory spices like cinnamon, coriander and cumin using it as both the sauce and topping then sprinkling it with sumac and lemon juice like the traditional lahmajun or Turkish or Armenian version of pizza. I once created a pizza that would make Beantown proud spreading a thickened “sauce” of clam juice then topping it with roasted potatoes, chopped clams, minced smoked onions and chopped celery for a clam chowder pizza. I was so proud of it, I thought of approaching CPK to offer them licensing rights… Future Mash-Ups My next food project will involve using the traditional Chinese bao but stuffing it with a variety of fillings from Hawaiian kalua pig and cabbage to shredded Filipino chicken or pork adobo to chopped Korean bulgogi and banchan to Middle Eastern chicken tagine. I even plan on flavoring the bao with various spices and already ordered a bag of powdered malunggay to give the bao a vivid green color for the adobo filling. Or adding the classic Middle Eastern spice blend, Ras al Hanout in the dough that envelops the chicken tagine filling. Another potential food project involves taking that that classic Italian creation pasta but adding various ethnic influences to the mix. I previously mentioned using the Barilla Protein + in place of somen in the traditional somen salad or mixing it with cilantro pesto and garlic chili sauce and shrimp for an Asian twist on pasta. For the past century, Macedonian immigrants who settled in Cincinnati having been combining chili and spaghetti with an array of customary toppings such as minced onions, cheese, beans and jalapeno though I recall the local Zippy’s restaurants have been offering chili spaghetti since I was a child. However, I wouldn’t be the first home chef to create ethnic mash-ups of the that classic Italian staple as two local restauranteurs have been offering their versions of Italian-Japanese-Filipino-Hawaiian pasta for several years now at Adela’s Country Eatery…

Adela’s Country Eatery Tucked into a mini, mini strip mall in the sleepy town of Kaneohe, Hawaii, Adela’s Country Eatery is the partnership of Millie Chan who along with her husband Richard Chan own the I Love Country Café eateries and Adela Visitacion who creates the baked good at I Love Country Cafe. While being interviewed by a Hokkaido radio station in Waikiki, the interviewer was so impressed with Adela’s mac nut shortbread that he invited Millie and Adela for a trip to Hokkaido. While there, they spent 5 days learning the craft of making ramen noodles and eventually purchased a ramen machine and shipped it back to the 50th. Once back in Hawaii, they decided to make ramen noodles with indigenous products such as malunggay, taro, breadfruit, Okinawan sweet potatoes and avocado. However, instead of simply creating ramen broth for these locally inspired noodles, they created pasta sauces like shrimp, mushrooms, luau (taro) leaf and coconut cream on taro noodles or garlic, chili pepper and lechon (crispy pork belly) on vivid green malunggay noodles or charred portobello mushrooms topping garlic breadfruit noodles. Like a mixture Japanese and Hawaiian noodles meets Filipino and Italian sauces. If you decide to travel to the 50th, I highly recommend sampling these cultural mash-up noodles that Adela’s Country Eatery serves up. Adela’s Country Eatery 45-1151 Kamehameha Highway Kaneohe HI 96744 (808) 236-2366 Open Mon- Sat 10:30am – 8:00pm