Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #655704 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
Hawaii has perhaps the most culturally diverse population on earth. The story of how the Polynesians, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Filipinos, Okinawans, Puerto Ricans, various Southeast Asian peoples, and Caucasians (known as haoles) brought together their culinary traditions on these islands makes fascinating reading. Laudan concentrates on local food rather than the world-class glamour of the Hawaiian regional cuisine cooked up by famous island chefs Amy Ferguson Ota and Roy Yamaguchi. She presents the polyglot world of the plate lunch, Spam, mochi, seaweed, shaved ice, sushi, and all the other dishes that Hawaiians really eat every day. Primarily a living and lively culinary history, this book does include recipes for the most commonplace Hawaiian dishes.

Customer Reviews

Well Researched, Good Resource
It seems this book was born out of Laudan's attempt to categorize and make sense out of the foods in Hawaii. I was raised in Hawaii and grew up surrounded by the foods that Laudan presents in her book. Many of the local cookbooks put together and sold by Hawaii's churches, schools, and communities give you recipes from local home kitchens; nothing too fancy and usually no description of the dish, because it is assumed you know what the ingredients are and how they are used.

More than a cookbook, Laudan has written well-researched histories of how various local foods have developed throughout the islands before each main and sub sections (The Plate Lunch, The Matter of Mochi, Sorting Out Sushi to name a few). And, she includes a brief explaination of the dish before each recipe.

I bought this book hoping to shed some light on "crack seed" and how to make it. Unfortunately, it appears that she was able to get only the more well known recipes due to the fact that the main ingredient (oriental flowering apricot) is not widely available.

This book is a good resource, if not for the recipes, then for the history of Hawaii's local food for both non-Hawaii and island cooks. One caveat: a recipe found in a cookbook is no more than a base on which to add/subtract/change ingredients as you see fit. There is no such thing as "The Recipe" for teriyaki sauce - recipes vary from home to home and island to island.

where's maui sherbert?
Maui Sherbert

2 (7oz) cans strawberry soda AND 1 can sweetened condensed milk AND 1 (7oz) can 7-up

Mix together and freeze for 3 hours. Whisk. Freeze again.

Interesting to read, not the best recipes
Reading this book brought memories of a childhood partially spent in Hawaii flooding back. Rachel Laudan definitely seems to cover a the broad array of unique goodies that can be found in Hawaii; for instance, Hawaii is the ONLY place to truly appreciate shaved ice and the potential myriad of delicious flavors. Unfortunately, however, the recipes don't quite live up to expectation. I can remember one of my earliest memories in Hawaii -- I had made friends w/ another little girl at the beach and her family invited me to share in their cooked-at-the-beach lunch of steamed rice and teriyaki beef. It was sooo good and not something that my mom cooked for ME at the beach! I've been looking to re-create that taste and memory for a while and Rachel Laudan's teriyaki recipe falls far, far short. Her butter mochi recipe is also very heavy and greasy for my tastes (and I love mochi). Nevertheless, it's a fascinating account of Hawaiian cooking. I just wish the recipes were excellent, too.