April 30, 2020 • 47 mins
Hawaiian foodways have intersected with immigrants’ and colonists’ influences to create delicious local dishes. On Oahu, we spoke with Highway Inn restaurant owner Monica Toguchi Ryan about history, generosity, making do, and cooking with aloha.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam and today
we have an interview for you from our trip to Oahu. Yes,
and this was a super fun one. We get to
play with legos, uh and we're children, so so so Yeah,
so that was a very perfect for for us. Yeah,
(00:27):
this is our interview with Monica to Gucci Ryan Um
and Uh, joined in parts by her husband, wrestle Ryan. Yes,
he was kind of the peanut gallery. He was just
sitting back there. And then every now and then we'd
get a comment from Yeah, a really good, pithy, worthwhile comment.
It was. It was. It was an unexpected addition to
the interview and a very very good one. Yes, And
(00:50):
this was when we were really happy to get because
Monica provided such a great context too, the food scene
in Hawaiian. She's um a third generation owner of restaurant
called Highway In that has three locations now all around Oahu.
And she she had like visual aids and just was
(01:11):
so knowledgeable. Yeah, I mean we were expecting. I mean,
you know, we we knew that she's the owner and
this restaurant has been in her family for so long.
But yeah, the food at Highway in um uh. They
serve a lot of a lot of traditional Hawaiian dishes, um,
like fresh poke a roast clue a pig um allow law,
which is a dish of protein that's kind of steamed
(01:32):
in tea leaves that's t I not t e a anyway. Um.
Some stews and soups like squid luoo and chicken long rice.
You can you can get these things ala carte or
via the classic plate lunch with sides like poi or rice,
um lomami, salmon mac salad, and Helpia which is his
coconut pudding dessert which is also good anyway. Um. More
(01:53):
modern dishes as well, like loco moco and casadillas and
fried fish or chicken wings with house twists, all kinds
of lovely things. Oh, I have such a craving, now,
I know. Yeah. I was looking at their menus and
everything and just kind of quietly freaking out. Um. It's
like a really nostalgic craving for that brief beautiful window.
(02:18):
Oh gosh. Um. And and yeah, we we met up
with Monica near Highway in second location in the Salt
development in kaca Ako, which is this area of Honolulu
with a lot of history, and we talked some about
that in the interview. Um, but they're Um. The reason
that there were Legos is that we were meeting up
in like this this this office area in that development,
(02:42):
and they had this little Lego build out of the area.
So and we immediately we were very We tried to
put up a front for two seconds and then made
a bee line for it. Yeah. Absolutely, come on, Legos,
what do you want from us? Right? I mean, we're humans,
(03:04):
adult humans, but human beings. Everyone likes Lego. I bet
there's some amazing Lego projects happening right now. Leg I
have I have a friend who has been live streaming
some Legos and it has been amazing. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah,
it's a live streams are a great thing. Um uh
(03:27):
speech speaking of of COVID nineteen, if you happen to
be an a Wahu Highway in is open for takeout
and delivery right now, please support your local restaurants when
and if you can. Yes, absolutely, Oh so hungry, so jealous.
But okay, I suppose we should. We should happen to
(03:48):
our interview. Yes, yes, I will let former Annie, Lauren
and Monica take it away. This used to be the
sea wall, so this is kind of like all I
want a boulevard of the water in the shore line
came all the way up here, and they had judged it,
I think sometimes either in the late eighteen hundreds or
early nineteen hundreds, they judged all of this area. So
(04:13):
if you can take a look, their salt pans here.
And that's that's the reason why Commitments Schools named this
place salt at our cacaco um. The Hawaiian word for
salt is paki, but they wanted to be more inclusive
of other others and so they named it salt and
(04:33):
that's the reason why we got that name. Yeah, that's
kind of cool. Yeah, but these are all wide words,
and everybody complains, like how do you get around if
I'm trying to tell the cab driver where I'm not,
how do I pronounce that word? That word? And then
they end up in the wrong place, you know. So
(04:54):
we've we've been struggling with it ourselves since we have
been here. It's it's it's very um fanetic. I mean,
it's like everywhere letters pronounced the way you typically see it.
So it's not it's once you kind of get the
basic role to to the language, it's not too hard. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's I think what's different about
So there are a couple of big land owners in
(05:16):
this area called kakako um Commitment Schools. Bishop of State
is one of them. Across all Muana Boulevard is OHA,
which is Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which is part of
the Hawaii State government. UM it's a little arm offshoot
of the state government specifically to look after Native Hawaiians
(05:37):
and their interests. And then we also have Howard Hughes
Development that's kind of the more polished side of Cacaco.
So you have east side and west side. We're on
the west side of Cacacko. So but these three kind
of land owners have over the past couple of years
have really um gentrified this area. And and so now
(05:58):
what you see is a lot of multimillion dollar condos,
like many places around the country, a lot of the
local people feeling a bit pushed out because they can't
afford on the cost of living here in Hawaii. You know,
our hospitality here in Hawaii is and the military is
our main economic drivers here. In the state. And what
(06:19):
that means is you don't really have other kinds of
industries like high tech for example, Manufacturing is is kind
of on the low side to rely on to generate
a more diverse economy. Yeah, I imagine being literally positioned
where Hawaii is, it makes it more difficult to attract,
(06:39):
especially manufacturing, probably due to the cost of Yeah, I
mean you kind of think that if you look on
the map and you look on the globe, like what
you really is isolated. It is like this little tiny
island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is
like the largest body of water on the planet, and
we really you are this amazing piece of land. Um
(07:02):
that's just the middle of nowhere. And they've always been
talking about how strategically, um, we are positioned because we
are positioned between the west and the east, and how
that could be used in our interest for our interests.
That has never really materialized outside of the military position
and and tourism figured it out. We're still trying to
(07:26):
figure it out, and we haven't done a very good
job doing that well. I like to be fair Commertual
air flight has only existed for what like seventy years now,
So I think you're doing it just okay. Yeah, Because
we live in the middle of the Pacific, everything has
to be shipped in, and so what you find is
(07:47):
you find even your basic food products for example, things
that you need for construction, everything has to be shipped in.
And there's a bit of a monopoly on shipping. And
there's also some federal laws caught the Jones Act, which
requires any shipping boats that comes to our ports needs
to be US. It cannot be foreign. And so that
(08:10):
also drives up the cost here. And so as residents
and people that live here on this island, we pay
extra oil also gets shipped in, so we have one
of the highest energy costs, one of the highest cost
of living. And also if you buy like a gallon
of milk, it's probably like seven or eight bucks for
a gallon of milk here in Hawaii. It's very expensive.
(08:33):
As as a business owner, as a small business owner,
is that prohibitive? I think people are struggling. You know
that the local people here UM, both Hoians and both
multigenerational families UM that have planted their roots here. So
back in the mid eighteen hundreds we have our plantation
history and so what had happened back then was a
(08:54):
bunch of American business people had recognized that Hawaii's climate
was excellent for sugarcane and for pineapple. And what you
find during that time period from what I know, and
I'm not a historian in any way, so I don't
claim myself to be an expert. So you know, people
can google this and then find out if I'm telling
the truth. They're making this stuff up. But you know,
(09:16):
around the same time, there was a gold rush that
was happening as well, and so that spurred this demand
for sugar. And because of our climate, a lot of
American business people started plantation for sugar canes and pineapple.
And so what you find in the eighteen fifties is
you start seeing they call this called the Masters and
Servants Act. It paid the way for a lot of
(09:37):
importation of workers from other countries, and the California gold
rest spur at the demand for Hawaiian sugar. So now
we see in the eighteen fifties, the first labors that
came to work on the plantations where Chinese labors, and
they did not bring their wives with them. So today
you see a lot of Chinese Hawaiian ethnic mixes. Then
the civil war in eighteen six you and also continue
(10:00):
you to increase the demand for sugar, and so now
you have these business people that have this very profitable business.
Then what you find is in the late eighteen hundreds, Um,
queen look, Lenny gets overthrown by American business people because
there's some American interest and so there's this you know,
generational unfairness of the people's lands being taken and a
(10:27):
sovereign monarchy being overthrown through the annexation of Hawaii. Uh So,
queenly look, Leni is the last Rainy monarch and she
was prisoned. I think can commitment the first Actually, if
you take a look at the Hawaiian flag, the Hawaiian
flag has a Union Jack on it. And my understanding,
(10:48):
can commitment the first understood how the Western world was
going to significantly impact the Hawaiian culture and you know,
perhaps wanted to have relationships more with England. Then when
in the from the United States and so adopted some
of the parts of the British flag and the Union jack.
And so you see in the Hawaiian fly the Union Jack,
(11:11):
which is our state flag. Um. You then find um,
in eighteen sixty eight, Japanese labors coming on board. The
Japanese labors were perhaps the largest group of immigrants, about
two hundred thousand Japanese immigrants came. I believe they all
believed that at one time they would go back to
Japan and they would make whatever money they could and
(11:32):
then go back to Japan. But they found out very
quickly when they worked on the plantation how hard life
was on the plantation. And they were very much like
indentured servants, and so it's really tough to get out
of that life. And then in eighteen seventy eight you
find the Portuguese. Now, the Portuguese, being at their fair skinned,
were an ethnic group that were typically, if anything, promoted
(11:55):
to what they call lunas or supervisors on the plantation.
So now in Hawaii you also see a lot of Portuguese, Chinese,
Hawaiian ethnic mixes because of all these different ethnic groups
coming on board. Hawaiian history also has Puerto Ricans, and
so we also have some food influences from from Puerto
Ricans and green bananas, for example, hotel Stu. I'm not sure.
(12:19):
I always get confused if it's Patel pastel I'm not
really quite sure how you know, different people have different
ways here pronouncing it. And then you also have like
the Koreans coming on board in the early nineteen hundreds, um,
and then also Filipinos arriving. And so what you find
in hawaiis food culture now is you have this very
diverse hodgepodge of foods on our table today. How do
(12:45):
you create a menu based on that? That's a great question. Well,
you know, I don't know if if your listeners out
there know this, but Hawaii is actually the spam but
all the world. Yeah, we had like a sam fest
(13:07):
and I think there was just this spam jam festival
not too long ago. A lot of the plantation workers
were very poor, and as a result, what you find
is the kind of foods that they ate were typically
things I could they could probably grow on their own.
There are a lot of people back then because of
our warm climate, also grew a lot of things like mangos, avocados. Um.
(13:30):
We have this thing called light chee. I don't know
how you guys might pronounce it, but it's that that
hard fruit with the white pitted fruit. And then, of course,
because meat was expensive, typically what you find is a
lot of canned meat. So one thing, for example, in
our restaurant, we have corn beef and hash. Now to
an outsider, you're thinking corn brisket. You're thinking something that's
(13:53):
slow cooked, you know in Irish corn beef and in cabbage. Right.
But here in Hawaiti, if you your cent our history
is actually canned corn beef. So when somebody from the
Milan comes over and they order a corn beef and hash,
they have a very different they're kind of caught off
guard because they're not thinking in the same way that
(14:14):
local people experienced corn beef yea from the can right? Yeah? Yeah? Um,
because you're you're the third generation owner owner, right and
have you changed the menu? Are kept it more or
less the same? Yeah? So you know Highway and started
ninety seven by my grandparents. Um, they were very poor.
(14:37):
They my grandfather only had a third great education. I
believe my sister always does me keep making up stories
because I'm never telling really the whole truth. But I
just don't really know the truth. Second, great, they're great.
You know the point of it is that he wasn't
formally educated. And I met my grandmother. Uh, started Highway
in nineteen seven and at that time, wine families made
(15:01):
their own food typically um, but it wasn't really a
mainstream thing, you know. And if you think about what
eating out meant back in the forties, it was really
a special occasion. I think, you know, um, not too
many people in the forties had a lot of disposable income.
So I'm you know, I'm going to assume that when
you went out to eat, it was typically for a
(15:21):
special occasion or or you know, something similar to that.
My grandparents were actually of Japanese ancestry. But my grandfather
was born here and grew up with Hawaiian food and
loved to wine food and many Huaian friends. And what
had happened was during World War Two, Pearl Harbor was
bombed and we have now the Japanese American internment story,
(15:46):
and my grandfather was interned um in Arkansas. So I
have an uncle born Jerome, Arkansas, amazingly, and my father
was born in an internment camp into La Lake, California.
And anybody that is familiar with Japanese American history knows
that Tooley Lake was was one of the worst internment
(16:07):
camps you could have been sent to. So he went
there and you know, he made lemonade out of lemons
and met a lot of other Japanese American cooks from
around the country and learned when you were into and
you had to list a skill, like if you are
a barber or your teacher. And my my grandfather being
that he was always cooking and put cook and so
(16:30):
he learned how to cook certain American dishes like sortline cutlets, hamburger,
steak um in the mess hall with these other Japanese Americans,
and so they became a part of the highway in menu.
When the war ended in nineteen forty five, he was
released in from the internment camp in January of nineteen
fourty six. He tried a couple of things. He tried
(16:51):
to grow pigs, but they got skinnier instead of fatter,
and recognized pretty quickly he was in a pig farmer um.
And by that time when he left, you know, when
he was interned, they left with I think three kids
and came back with five. And now eventually they ended
up having seven children. But back then, you have you
(17:12):
had a lot of children, and that was an unusual
back then, and and so he decided to he really
loved to wine food and really thought that it was
something worth sharing. And at that time a lot of
a lot of restaurants were more Japanese or Chinese. Um.
I think even today there's probably more Mexican restaurants. There's
not too many Hawaiian food restaurants, and for those that
(17:36):
are around, a lot of them are family owned, have
been around. Hiawaian is one of the older Hawaiian food restaurants.
Things are very simple back then. You know, you you
have your basic Hawaiian food staples Poi la la pipikla
trips do now lomi salmon, which is a really interesting
Hawaiian dish. This is this is where you start to
(17:58):
see how the introduction of different peoples and different groups
come into play. So here in Hawaii we have no salmon.
I was noting that. Okay, I'm glad you wrote it.
I'm glad you noted that. So you know, if you
think pre if you think about pre contact, when Hawaiian's arrived,
they had two mean migrations, the first one from the
(18:20):
Marquesses and the second one from Tahiti. And this is
all pre contact seventeen seventy and what they brought with
them on their or their canoe where things like taro
which we call calo in Hawaiian banana which is maya
coconut new um. They also brought bread fruit ulu um,
(18:40):
and they brought dog illegal chicken moa, and pigs poa,
and they brought things like even like our root, which
we call pia. So we do have a dessert at
highway in or a lot of point restaurants have this
is called how pia because originally it was made with
our roots and out instead of pia, we we use
(19:02):
corn starch to help me this dessert. But then you
see what happens in seventeen seventy eight and the early
eighteen hundreds is you start to see whalers and merchants
starting to arrive here in Hawaii, and what they start
bringing with them is salted fish. And they start seeing
that also Hawaiians have salts that you know, around the world,
(19:23):
salt is a very valuable commodity, of course, especially back then,
right and I believe the root word of salary actually
also derives from the words salt. Yeah, it's Latin. So
we have our common commentator in the background here, the
British commentator, the colonists and We have some more of
(19:49):
our interview with Monica, but first we have a quick
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you sponsored. Let's get back into the interview. The
sound of would actually was at one time something that
Hawaiian's actually treated as well sandal would before the pineapple
(20:12):
and trigger cane industry came about. But you know in
seventeen early eighteen hundreds, um now you see salted fish.
So that's how you see um loammi salmon. We have
this dish called pipecla. Captain George Vancouver actually gifted King
Kamehameha the first cattle. This eventually created the Paniola history,
(20:34):
which is the Hawaiian cowboy. They had a cock poo
on it, which cop kind of means like forbidden. So
can come in with the first you know, nobody could
touch this animal that they've never came across, which is
a cattle. And they had to bring the Mexican bakatos,
which I believe means he us your commentator, because ye so,
(21:05):
so they brought cattle and they didn't know what to
do with it. They didn't know how to manage this animal.
So they brought vocados and they taught Hawaiians how to ranch,
and so now we have peepecola peepe meaning beef like
strips or jerked beef. They would salted too, you know,
they cut up the animal they could preserve as much
needs by making it into like salted or jerky. And
(21:29):
so you have this story of pepecola. Now in the
Paniola Hawaiian cowboy history and different groups of people throughout
you know, the decades um brought over different types of products.
So like which you find is Don Francisco Marin Arizon, Honolulu,
(21:49):
and he starts bringing tomatoes. So now we have the
Hawaiian cevici, which is bumomy salmon. You get the salted fish,
and now you get this tomato that's all dye stuff.
And you have sam. And now it is a it's
a food item that comes post Western world contact. But
because it's been around since late seventeen hundreds, early in
(22:10):
eighteen hundreds, people have now adopted it as part of
the Hawaiian food culture. And so you see lemi san.
And the other thing that you see in the Hawaiian
food menu that is also influenced by another group of
people is our chicken long rice and I'm looking at
Dylan because he just ordered that yesterday. Okay, it was
so good. It was It's a very simple it's a
(22:33):
very simple dish. And and that's the thing, you know,
one of the things at Highway and I did create this.
What was most important for me when people who are
not familiar with Hawaiian food come and they eat with
us at Highway End, it really wanted them to understand
what I'm explaining right now, which is part of that
culture and that history. Because when you understand what has
(22:56):
happened here in the islands, then you can have a
great appreciation for why the food is the way that
it is. Otherwise you just can't appreciate it as much
because what you're doing is you're comparing native foods that
are simple in both in preparation, but it takes a
very long time. It's very laborious. Um. But you know,
(23:20):
if you think about seasonings, what do they have popkey
salt lemal like seaweed and they cook nuts just like
a tree nut for seasoning, and um, we didn't have
like cheeses and basil and spices. So you know, if
you compare it to other types of world cuisines, you
(23:43):
just don't have the layered flavors there. Um. But once
you understand the story, for example, like poi. I don't
know if anybody tried poi different currents okay, and different
varieties of Yeah, we had we had one that was
that was pretty for mented and one that was very
lightly prevented. Um. And I really like the sour kind honestly,
(24:05):
like it's it's it goes so well with the sweetness
of a roast pork. Yeah, and actually it's better to
eat it more sour. Sure it's health here for bacteria.
Black is blacktopius, and it's good for your microbiome, Yeah,
your microbiomem and and and so Hawaiians fundamentally understood this.
(24:28):
And and they have the same a poop akeye cock cole,
which means they would you know, pretty much put salts
in the poi because I was so sour, you know,
does scrape off all the furry stuff growing on it.
But some something with the with the poi created really
good bacteria for your gut and and colo for example,
(24:51):
So when people eat Hawaian food, I always say that
the most culturally significant dish is going to be the poi.
But from any other p sspective, it's probably the most unappealing.
I think. I think it's just I think it's just unexpected. Like, um,
(25:12):
we have a friend who's who grew up on Hawaiian
has only been in Atlanta for a few years, and
when we asked her what it's like, like what to expect,
she was like, you'll just find out. She's like, there's
no way to really explain it, like, yeah, yeah, to
experience it firsthand. Yeah, And it is like it's it's
strange like as as a you know, like like I
grew up in Ohio and and and the American South,
(25:33):
Like you know, there's nothing that's um that's kind of
sticky and and sour like that that like it's either
sticky or it's sour and that. So the combination of
that texture in the fire. Yeah. And and the thing
about it is I think you know, within the Pacific
and even Southeast Asia, taro is used throughout Southeast Asia
and through the Pacific. What is really I think you
(25:54):
need to Hawaiian culture is the fact that they pound
the taro so we call i and then it turns
into what we call put ei. So put ei is
it's very use only enough water to be able to
pound the poi or pound the tower. I'm sorry. And
then you get it into this form called put e
i and you wrap it in in tea leave to
(26:16):
keep it fresh, and once you're ready to actually you know,
eat it and share. Hawaiians is a culture, very generous,
generous culture. You add the poi so you can stretch
the colo, you can stretch the taro and share it
with other people. But also, like we spoke about earlier,
is that it it has a very healthy aspect to
to the product where the fermentation process occurs um. And
(26:40):
I don't think any other culture actually does this with
tarot in this way. I certainly hadn't. I wanted to
ask you about the about the tea leaves. That's a
that's also part of the cooking process for like a Yeah, yeah,
can you talk about what that adds to the us? Yeah,
(27:01):
So tea leaf is a really phenomenal product. Also in
Hawaiian culture, it's also used um. It's a special kind
of tea leaf that cockus or spiritual leaders use for blessings. Oftentimes,
when you hear like Pele the fire goddess upon Kilauea
that is you know, for the lava. They tell you
(27:23):
the folklore is put tea leaves around your house so
that sh'll go the lava will floor around your house.
So it's also um from a cultural and you know, perspective,
like a divine protection. In food, it's used to wrap things.
I saw this one restaurant actually, I think it's on
(27:43):
Maui there they were actually using tea leaf to wrap
their sandwiches so that it was zero waste. And I
was like, oh geez, we're gonna drive up the cost
for tea leaves now because now there's another use for
tea leaf. But what we use it for is to
wrap the law law in and then we steam it. Um.
It helps to keep the laula. If you've ever had allaala,
(28:07):
it's this wonderful bundle of joy of delicious pork. And
we call it butterfish, but most people know this fish
is black cod. It's a little tiny piece of black
cod and and it it helps to keep the shape
of the lau la and it also helps to keep
it from burning from so it does have this element
(28:29):
where it keeps the laala from being burnt. Look at
like a moisturization keeps the moisture in there, keeps the
lua leaves fresh. Um um. You need to steam the
laula for quite some time because you need to break
down the lua leaves. So it's it's called calcium oxalate.
(28:50):
And basically if you don't cook the lua leaves long enough,
it will make your mouth and your throat itchy. Oh yeah,
that's I'm sure it's just a protein breakdown of something
that like reacts that we react poorly to that this
allows us to process. Yeah, and so the lu all
leads really needs to be cooked and steamed a long
(29:13):
time or you might feel a little bit itchy in
your mouth. Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. But also to like
what I said when you CoA and you palm boys
also sometimes used to carry product, you know, to wrap product,
food product and as a way to be able to
transport it from one place to another. Sure, thank you
(29:34):
so much for speaking to the to the history of
the islands, and we absolutely agree that getting the history
of where people are from in those food waves is
critical to understanding Yeah, what you're doing here. I always like,
you know, people always say, well, what's your favorite what's
your favorite meal? And I like to say, I think
was really healthy in the Hawaiian food menu is a
(29:55):
bullet point because you have your complex car and it's fermented, right,
so you also have your fermented food and la la
which is you get your daily dose of greens, which
is like spinach or kale. You know, it has like
vitamin A, C, iron, calcium, you know, all that good stuff.
And then you have your protein you know, which is
(30:16):
your your pork, and you have your omega three witches
for which is from the black plot. You know. So
to me, I think like and and the funny thing
here too, I don need blood and a really good
you know. The girl said, well, you know, before you
go and donate blood, beside drinking a lot of water,
you should eat a lot of poke it and you
(30:36):
shoot a lot of poi poi and poke it. And
I was like, um, there's something about poke it which
is you know, Hawaiian cubed fish. And you know from
what I hear is that it's just like this this
rage across the country. And for us it's like saying, well, well,
spam musu be is the rage across the country which
would probably never happened, but um, poke a We've been
(30:58):
eating this for a long time and we don't we
don't get fussy about it here. We just keep the fish,
you know, put put throw some Hawaiian salt or you know,
put put some soy sauce or sesame oil, and you know,
eat it raw, eat it on its own, like as
we call it poopoos. I'm not sure if you've ever
heard that, so it's so again, it's one of those
things that's really funny. It's kind of like, would you
(31:19):
like some poopoos? And people are like, what, you know,
like poopoos? That sounds like, you know, that just sounds
like a really weird word, but it means appetizer or
you know, or DERs for for people that don't know.
But you know, we just eat it and we eat
it with chopsticks or fork or whatever. And you go,
you go on Instagram and they're just putting pineapple on
(31:41):
it and they're doing some crazy stuff with it and
and for people like here and when you're just like, yeah,
we don't eat it with pineapple. Yeah. Down the street
from my from my house, there is a poke chain
restaurant um with a poke bar where you can get
all kinds of different fish and different you can get
it served on top of like right, or or kale
(32:04):
or whatever it is. We don't, but you know, I
mean it's it's it's open to interpretation, right, I mean
that's basically food, food culture is it's open to interpretation.
So that's that's what you know here. And know what
we call people in the continental US Mainlanders, I don't
(32:26):
know what you guys call us, like, you know, just
like islanders in the middle of nowhere, um. But you
know on the mainland, you know, they've taken something that
we've grown up with and have interpreted in whatever culinary
palette that suits them, whether that's New York or the
Midwest or the West Coast and waiting for like poke
(32:49):
bagels things. Yeah, we actually did this thing where there's
a really great dessert. We get it once a week.
It's called kololo. Basically it's made out of taro, sugar, honey.
So we got some yesterday and it's a dessert that's
very hard to find. And what we did is it's
(33:10):
only good for like a day or two. So we
took it and we we made it into like a
ball and we put like polke in it and we
just try to fright up and see how that turned out.
And it was kind of really interesting because the consistency
of of coololo is kind of like if you're familiar
with um mochi, which is that very gelatin. I don't
(33:32):
know is the word witness rice? Right? You look like
you're still processing it, yeah, because it was the cheft
did that, and I was like, it tastes good, but
I don't know what to make of it because I've
never had this combination of texture together. What was the
was that you said poke and some inside inside and
then we like deep fried it? So was so was
(33:55):
the poke inside still like like raw? It was like
semi was like kind of like a little bit steamed,
a little seared. Yeah, I can't yea. So we do
that with rice balls? Oh yeah, so you do that
like here in Hawaii there's there's some places that will
take like a rice ball and put poke in the
middle and then so it's really crispy on the that
(34:16):
side and then you've got this fresh polk in inside
that's really pretty ummy. Um. But Hawaiian food is is
you know how it has changed over the years is
you know I think back then, like my grandparents time,
things were very simple. You know, it's very straightforward. You know.
People ask us, how do we get the name highway In. Well,
(34:39):
my grandparents first store was on Farrington Highway, which is
a stretch of road on the west side of o Wahoo.
And back then in the forties there were a few
popular restaurants Victoria in Colombia and with Terry and so
all the people in their seventies and eighties will fondly
remember these restaurants. Um and so he named it Highway In.
(35:02):
And so we're like, well, yeah, that's very uncreative, but
it works, you know. I mean it was I think
our our grandparents generation was very straightforward and very practical.
There was no such thing as marketing gimmicks and trying
to persuade you to buy their product on Instagram. And
I mean they're very simple, you know. And and and
now people create names in a way that they're much
(35:25):
more thoughtful in terms of what that name communicates to
to an audience, where whereas Highway In really just came
with the practicality of where it was located and in
that time period. And then interestingly enough, in we opened
Highway In on all a Wanta Boulevard, which is also
known as name Is Highway, so you know it works.
(35:46):
But here in Cocaco it is a different group of
not different and the same. Whereas we're very close to Waikiki,
so we do get more tourists, um, we get more
business people because we're also right next to downtown on Lulu,
which is our business district, and we have our local
families that come and eat with us, and so we
have a very diverse group of people that come and
(36:07):
eat with us here in Coca Acko. Alternatively, our Waipaca
location which is kind of like our starbooks at Pike's Market.
You know, it's the original, UM, but not in a
famous place like Pike's Market. It's in a place called Waipahu,
which means like gushing fresh water. We draw a lot
of our customers from places like non Akuli and Way
(36:30):
and I a lot of Native Hawaiian populations that are multigenerational.
So our customers in Waipa, who they know what they want.
They if we have specials, it doesn't matter to them.
Whereas our customers they come in and they're like, well,
you know, I'm vegan, what do you have And we're
(36:50):
like pois a little bit of salt haw kai U. Yeah,
but are but you know, joking aside, it is a
little bit more diverse in menu offerings more than our
white packet location. Because our customers here in Cocaco are
(37:14):
are are far more diverse than those in White Papa.
You know. I think we are really fortunate here in
a way. And and one thing I think that's really
great about the restaurant industry that I try to share
with our staff because my friend who owns another restaurant,
Tikis out in Waikiki, shared with me the restaurant industry
(37:35):
is unique in the sense that it's one of those
industries where, for the most part, not always, I mean,
you get those customers that you really prefer not to have,
but you know, it's it's to make people happy. You're
You're we're in an industry that you can make people happy.
You know. Unlike doctors and lawyers you know, E m
t s right there, they're always in difficult situations that
(37:57):
are not either people are fighting, where people are sick,
or you know, there's it's an emergency situation. Um, there's
a lot of pressure in the kitchen. But ultimately we
are in in a position to be a positive experience
in people's lives. And I think oftentimes restaurant people forget
this because it is very there's a lot of pressure,
(38:18):
and you know, our servers. I always like to share
with our servers that it's kind of like having a
hundred bosses every day. Get me this, I want this.
This is not good, you know. And and it's stressful
for our servers just as much as it's stressful for
our kitchen staff try to get the food out. But
the one thing here and what you think that makes
us quite unique and quite fortunate is the sense of aloha.
(38:43):
And and not to sound cliche about it, but we
do have this overarching cultural value of aloha which anybody
who is born and raised or moved to the islands
would be very aware of. And like all o you know,
like forward or presence ha meaning breath, you know, the
(39:04):
presence of life. To be compassionate, to show kindness, to
show grace. These are things that are just very much
a part of the Hawaiian culture, the host culture, and
and so it's much easier to try to train people
because they fundamentally understand this idea of aloha. This like
(39:27):
Southern hospitality, I guess would be a bit similar. They
have very unique type of hospitality perspective. Yeah, we're just
talking about that in the lift on the way over.
Those two people like Southern hospitality, and you know, the
Hawaiian hospitality is it's very much like that. And you know,
(39:47):
I think several people, including you know, my favorite President Obama,
you know, um, um, you know, I think it's I
think it's cool that you know, they oftentimes recognize the
place that they come from can be, you know, beacon
of hope for for the world. Obviously in our own
(40:10):
little microcosm. Even here in Hawaii, where life is cost
of living is so high, it's very stressful for families
here in Hawaii to make it work. And so a
lot of families here in Hawaii they are very stressed out,
you know, as a result of it. But we're fortunate
enough to have this cultural value of aloha. Um, what
(40:30):
are you looking forward to in the future? More help?
I can only think like one day at a time, mom.
And And you know, anybody who who runs a restaurant,
who works in a restaurant, you know understands, Um. There's
a lot of competition now I think I think there's
a lot of people that talk about over saturation in
(40:51):
the restaurant industry. Um, there's a lot of restaurants that
are in need of kitchen help. You know, we're we're
all very price sensitive in terms of you know, there's
minimum wage issues going up. How is that going to
affect menu prices? When you start increasing menu prices, you
start to become concerned about consumer demand flattening or softening.
(41:15):
Then you can't really give hours to your staff. You know.
There's also the other layer of of technology and how
technology comes into play in the Russian industry, and you know,
you see McDonald's, for example, utilizing this in terms of
having people go up to the kiosk and playing placing
their own order. And so I think technology is also
(41:36):
changing the industry. And um, you know, as cost increase,
you know, people are trying to find ways to minimize
cost it that it doesn't affect the menu prices in
a way that will affect the demand. And so you know,
everyone is just just really trying very hard right now.
It's it's a very tough business to be in. And
(41:57):
I give anybody in this this business and body who
owns it anybody who manages it, anybody who works in it,
deserves a lot of credit. Absolutely. Yeah, it's tough. Do
you see some begins of hope out there? I think
you know so what I share with you earlier, I'm
losing some key people, which is common. You know, it's
(42:18):
moving in the right direction. Just before this, I had
a video interview with with Commitment School Salt about some
of our artwork here in Cocackle, and right outside our
restaurant there's a mural that says this is a good
day or this was a good day. And it's a
great mural to have right outside my restaurant because when
(42:41):
you're having a really crappy day and you see this big,
you know, street art that says this this is a
good day, Um, kind of reminds you to appreciate all
the good things that happened, because it could always be worse.
We have a little bit more of this interview for you,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
(43:03):
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor,
and back to the interview. Every now and then we
end up burning our law law and we can't use it.
And unfortunately there's a nonprofit organization called a Local Harvest
(43:24):
and I called him up and it's like, do you
think you can, Like the leaves are not burnt, but
it just kind of has that smell like it's burnt,
but nothing is really burnt. And this is to feed
the hungry, and so they were willing to take it.
So at least forty six law law that has his
burnt smell went to feed the hungry. So it's smith
and all bad, but still that's great. It's great that
(43:46):
organization thinks. Yeah, if anybody ever visits us here out
at Highway in and you're not familiar with Hawaiian food,
asked for a malahini guy. I have this guy that
says smalahini eye to Hawaiian food. And my standing joke
is that momyhini doesn't mean idiot, it means and he's
a newcomer. So it's not the idiots guy to Hawaiian food.
(44:10):
It's the newcomers guy to Hawaiian food. Just for clarification purposes. Um.
But but it is a great piece because it has
pictures and it talks about pepe Kala and it talks
about the story of Lomi salmon and it talks about Poi,
and it talks about Klope and La Lau and and
so if you really want to experience culture through food,
(44:34):
that's a great place to start. It truly is a
universal language. When you sit down and you offer food
or you make food for someone, it truly is an
act of love. And and so you know, I tell
all my staff that, and I'm sure every chef, every
cook knows this. The secret ingredient is always going to
be aloha. It's always going to be love. Because if
(44:56):
you don't have the feeling of aloha when you're cooking,
or the feeling of love, you know that that's the
mana or the spiritual nous of that process is what
makes you care about it. And that's why Grandma's food
is always the best, right, I mean, anybody's grand fog
boy in my case is my grandpa. But you know
that's why grandma's and grandpa's you know, cook the best
(45:17):
because when they cook for their children and their grandchildren
is always infused with aloha. Oh I love that so much, right, Yes,
that she was full of beautiful, beautiful things like that.
That just made me appreciate so much the power of
(45:40):
food in the connection that it it brings us absolutely. Oh,
I want to I want to go back right now.
I know. I was telling Dylan last night because we
were talking about this producer Dylan, that spirit of Aloha
and missing it so much, and I was was recounting
(46:00):
the tail of when I was in seventh grade. I
had a teacher, my social studies teacher who I loved,
but he used one of those kind of gruff. Also
a gym teacher, teacher okay, okay, yeah, And on the
last day of seventh grade, we were joking with him
because he was all decked out and like a straw hat,
a Hawaiian shirt, all this stuff, and we were like, coach,
(46:23):
why are you what are you going to way? And
he said, in my mind, I'm already there. He said
it so seriously, and I think about it all the time,
so we can be there in our minds. It's not
the same, Lauren, it's it's not the same. Certainly for
my stomach, yes, but uh, but man, I need to
(46:44):
go order some Loco moco from somewhere a solutely. That
sounds amazing right now. So we hope you enjoyed that
interview as much as we did. And we would really
love to hear from you listeners. You can email us
at hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on
(47:06):
social media. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter
and Facebook at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(47:28):
are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam and today
we have an interview for you from our trip to Oahu. Yes,
and this was a super fun one. We get to
play with legos, uh and we're children, so so so Yeah,
so that was a very perfect for for us. Yeah,
(00:27):
this is our interview with Monica to Gucci Ryan Um
and Uh, joined in parts by her husband, wrestle Ryan. Yes,
he was kind of the peanut gallery. He was just
sitting back there. And then every now and then we'd
get a comment from Yeah, a really good, pithy, worthwhile comment.
It was. It was. It was an unexpected addition to
the interview and a very very good one. Yes, And
(00:50):
this was when we were really happy to get because
Monica provided such a great context too, the food scene
in Hawaiian. She's um a third generation owner of restaurant
called Highway In that has three locations now all around Oahu.
And she she had like visual aids and just was
(01:11):
so knowledgeable. Yeah, I mean we were expecting. I mean,
you know, we we knew that she's the owner and
this restaurant has been in her family for so long.
But yeah, the food at Highway in um uh. They
serve a lot of a lot of traditional Hawaiian dishes, um,
like fresh poke a roast clue a pig um allow law,
which is a dish of protein that's kind of steamed
(01:32):
in tea leaves that's t I not t e a anyway. Um.
Some stews and soups like squid luoo and chicken long rice.
You can you can get these things ala carte or
via the classic plate lunch with sides like poi or rice,
um lomami, salmon mac salad, and Helpia which is his
coconut pudding dessert which is also good anyway. Um. More
(01:53):
modern dishes as well, like loco moco and casadillas and
fried fish or chicken wings with house twists, all kinds
of lovely things. Oh, I have such a craving, now,
I know. Yeah. I was looking at their menus and
everything and just kind of quietly freaking out. Um. It's
like a really nostalgic craving for that brief beautiful window.
(02:18):
Oh gosh. Um. And and yeah, we we met up
with Monica near Highway in second location in the Salt
development in kaca Ako, which is this area of Honolulu
with a lot of history, and we talked some about
that in the interview. Um, but they're Um. The reason
that there were Legos is that we were meeting up
in like this this this office area in that development,
(02:42):
and they had this little Lego build out of the area.
So and we immediately we were very We tried to
put up a front for two seconds and then made
a bee line for it. Yeah. Absolutely, come on, Legos,
what do you want from us? Right? I mean, we're humans,
(03:04):
adult humans, but human beings. Everyone likes Lego. I bet
there's some amazing Lego projects happening right now. Leg I
have I have a friend who has been live streaming
some Legos and it has been amazing. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah,
it's a live streams are a great thing. Um uh
(03:27):
speech speaking of of COVID nineteen, if you happen to
be an a Wahu Highway in is open for takeout
and delivery right now, please support your local restaurants when
and if you can. Yes, absolutely, Oh so hungry, so jealous.
But okay, I suppose we should. We should happen to
(03:48):
our interview. Yes, yes, I will let former Annie, Lauren
and Monica take it away. This used to be the
sea wall, so this is kind of like all I
want a boulevard of the water in the shore line
came all the way up here, and they had judged it,
I think sometimes either in the late eighteen hundreds or
early nineteen hundreds, they judged all of this area. So
(04:13):
if you can take a look, their salt pans here.
And that's that's the reason why Commitments Schools named this
place salt at our cacaco um. The Hawaiian word for
salt is paki, but they wanted to be more inclusive
of other others and so they named it salt and
(04:33):
that's the reason why we got that name. Yeah, that's
kind of cool. Yeah, but these are all wide words,
and everybody complains, like how do you get around if
I'm trying to tell the cab driver where I'm not,
how do I pronounce that word? That word? And then
they end up in the wrong place, you know. So
(04:54):
we've we've been struggling with it ourselves since we have
been here. It's it's it's very um fanetic. I mean,
it's like everywhere letters pronounced the way you typically see it.
So it's not it's once you kind of get the
basic role to to the language, it's not too hard. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's I think what's different about
So there are a couple of big land owners in
(05:16):
this area called kakako um Commitment Schools. Bishop of State
is one of them. Across all Muana Boulevard is OHA,
which is Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which is part of
the Hawaii State government. UM it's a little arm offshoot
of the state government specifically to look after Native Hawaiians
(05:37):
and their interests. And then we also have Howard Hughes
Development that's kind of the more polished side of Cacaco.
So you have east side and west side. We're on
the west side of Cacacko. So but these three kind
of land owners have over the past couple of years
have really um gentrified this area. And and so now
(05:58):
what you see is a lot of multimillion dollar condos,
like many places around the country, a lot of the
local people feeling a bit pushed out because they can't
afford on the cost of living here in Hawaii. You know,
our hospitality here in Hawaii is and the military is
our main economic drivers here. In the state. And what
(06:19):
that means is you don't really have other kinds of
industries like high tech for example, Manufacturing is is kind
of on the low side to rely on to generate
a more diverse economy. Yeah, I imagine being literally positioned
where Hawaii is, it makes it more difficult to attract,
(06:39):
especially manufacturing, probably due to the cost of Yeah, I
mean you kind of think that if you look on
the map and you look on the globe, like what
you really is isolated. It is like this little tiny
island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is
like the largest body of water on the planet, and
we really you are this amazing piece of land. Um
(07:02):
that's just the middle of nowhere. And they've always been
talking about how strategically, um, we are positioned because we
are positioned between the west and the east, and how
that could be used in our interest for our interests.
That has never really materialized outside of the military position
and and tourism figured it out. We're still trying to
(07:26):
figure it out, and we haven't done a very good
job doing that well. I like to be fair Commertual
air flight has only existed for what like seventy years now,
So I think you're doing it just okay. Yeah, Because
we live in the middle of the Pacific, everything has
to be shipped in, and so what you find is
(07:47):
you find even your basic food products for example, things
that you need for construction, everything has to be shipped in.
And there's a bit of a monopoly on shipping. And
there's also some federal laws caught the Jones Act, which
requires any shipping boats that comes to our ports needs
to be US. It cannot be foreign. And so that
(08:10):
also drives up the cost here. And so as residents
and people that live here on this island, we pay
extra oil also gets shipped in, so we have one
of the highest energy costs, one of the highest cost
of living. And also if you buy like a gallon
of milk, it's probably like seven or eight bucks for
a gallon of milk here in Hawaii. It's very expensive.
(08:33):
As as a business owner, as a small business owner,
is that prohibitive? I think people are struggling. You know
that the local people here UM, both Hoians and both
multigenerational families UM that have planted their roots here. So
back in the mid eighteen hundreds we have our plantation
history and so what had happened back then was a
(08:54):
bunch of American business people had recognized that Hawaii's climate
was excellent for sugarcane and for pineapple. And what you
find during that time period from what I know, and
I'm not a historian in any way, so I don't
claim myself to be an expert. So you know, people
can google this and then find out if I'm telling
the truth. They're making this stuff up. But you know,
(09:16):
around the same time, there was a gold rush that
was happening as well, and so that spurred this demand
for sugar. And because of our climate, a lot of
American business people started plantation for sugar canes and pineapple.
And so what you find in the eighteen fifties is
you start seeing they call this called the Masters and
Servants Act. It paid the way for a lot of
(09:37):
importation of workers from other countries, and the California gold
rest spur at the demand for Hawaiian sugar. So now
we see in the eighteen fifties, the first labors that
came to work on the plantations where Chinese labors, and
they did not bring their wives with them. So today
you see a lot of Chinese Hawaiian ethnic mixes. Then
the civil war in eighteen six you and also continue
(10:00):
you to increase the demand for sugar, and so now
you have these business people that have this very profitable business.
Then what you find is in the late eighteen hundreds, Um,
queen look, Lenny gets overthrown by American business people because
there's some American interest and so there's this you know,
generational unfairness of the people's lands being taken and a
(10:27):
sovereign monarchy being overthrown through the annexation of Hawaii. Uh So,
queenly look, Leni is the last Rainy monarch and she
was prisoned. I think can commitment the first Actually, if
you take a look at the Hawaiian flag, the Hawaiian
flag has a Union Jack on it. And my understanding,
(10:48):
can commitment the first understood how the Western world was
going to significantly impact the Hawaiian culture and you know,
perhaps wanted to have relationships more with England. Then when
in the from the United States and so adopted some
of the parts of the British flag and the Union jack.
And so you see in the Hawaiian fly the Union Jack,
(11:11):
which is our state flag. Um. You then find um,
in eighteen sixty eight, Japanese labors coming on board. The
Japanese labors were perhaps the largest group of immigrants, about
two hundred thousand Japanese immigrants came. I believe they all
believed that at one time they would go back to
Japan and they would make whatever money they could and
(11:32):
then go back to Japan. But they found out very
quickly when they worked on the plantation how hard life
was on the plantation. And they were very much like
indentured servants, and so it's really tough to get out
of that life. And then in eighteen seventy eight you
find the Portuguese. Now, the Portuguese, being at their fair skinned,
were an ethnic group that were typically, if anything, promoted
(11:55):
to what they call lunas or supervisors on the plantation.
So now in Hawaii you also see a lot of Portuguese, Chinese,
Hawaiian ethnic mixes because of all these different ethnic groups
coming on board. Hawaiian history also has Puerto Ricans, and
so we also have some food influences from from Puerto
Ricans and green bananas, for example, hotel Stu. I'm not sure.
(12:19):
I always get confused if it's Patel pastel I'm not
really quite sure how you know, different people have different
ways here pronouncing it. And then you also have like
the Koreans coming on board in the early nineteen hundreds, um,
and then also Filipinos arriving. And so what you find
in hawaiis food culture now is you have this very
diverse hodgepodge of foods on our table today. How do
(12:45):
you create a menu based on that? That's a great question. Well,
you know, I don't know if if your listeners out
there know this, but Hawaii is actually the spam but
all the world. Yeah, we had like a sam fest
(13:07):
and I think there was just this spam jam festival
not too long ago. A lot of the plantation workers
were very poor, and as a result, what you find
is the kind of foods that they ate were typically
things I could they could probably grow on their own.
There are a lot of people back then because of
our warm climate, also grew a lot of things like mangos, avocados. Um.
(13:30):
We have this thing called light chee. I don't know
how you guys might pronounce it, but it's that that
hard fruit with the white pitted fruit. And then, of course,
because meat was expensive, typically what you find is a
lot of canned meat. So one thing, for example, in
our restaurant, we have corn beef and hash. Now to
an outsider, you're thinking corn brisket. You're thinking something that's
(13:53):
slow cooked, you know in Irish corn beef and in cabbage. Right.
But here in Hawaiti, if you your cent our history
is actually canned corn beef. So when somebody from the
Milan comes over and they order a corn beef and hash,
they have a very different they're kind of caught off
guard because they're not thinking in the same way that
(14:14):
local people experienced corn beef yea from the can right? Yeah? Yeah? Um,
because you're you're the third generation owner owner, right and
have you changed the menu? Are kept it more or
less the same? Yeah? So you know Highway and started
ninety seven by my grandparents. Um, they were very poor.
(14:37):
They my grandfather only had a third great education. I
believe my sister always does me keep making up stories
because I'm never telling really the whole truth. But I
just don't really know the truth. Second, great, they're great.
You know the point of it is that he wasn't
formally educated. And I met my grandmother. Uh, started Highway
in nineteen seven and at that time, wine families made
(15:01):
their own food typically um, but it wasn't really a
mainstream thing, you know. And if you think about what
eating out meant back in the forties, it was really
a special occasion. I think, you know, um, not too
many people in the forties had a lot of disposable income.
So I'm you know, I'm going to assume that when
you went out to eat, it was typically for a
(15:21):
special occasion or or you know, something similar to that.
My grandparents were actually of Japanese ancestry. But my grandfather
was born here and grew up with Hawaiian food and
loved to wine food and many Huaian friends. And what
had happened was during World War Two, Pearl Harbor was
bombed and we have now the Japanese American internment story,
(15:46):
and my grandfather was interned um in Arkansas. So I
have an uncle born Jerome, Arkansas, amazingly, and my father
was born in an internment camp into La Lake, California.
And anybody that is familiar with Japanese American history knows
that Tooley Lake was was one of the worst internment
(16:07):
camps you could have been sent to. So he went
there and you know, he made lemonade out of lemons
and met a lot of other Japanese American cooks from
around the country and learned when you were into and
you had to list a skill, like if you are
a barber or your teacher. And my my grandfather being
that he was always cooking and put cook and so
(16:30):
he learned how to cook certain American dishes like sortline cutlets, hamburger,
steak um in the mess hall with these other Japanese Americans,
and so they became a part of the highway in menu.
When the war ended in nineteen forty five, he was
released in from the internment camp in January of nineteen
fourty six. He tried a couple of things. He tried
(16:51):
to grow pigs, but they got skinnier instead of fatter,
and recognized pretty quickly he was in a pig farmer um.
And by that time when he left, you know, when
he was interned, they left with I think three kids
and came back with five. And now eventually they ended
up having seven children. But back then, you have you
(17:12):
had a lot of children, and that was an unusual
back then, and and so he decided to he really
loved to wine food and really thought that it was
something worth sharing. And at that time a lot of
a lot of restaurants were more Japanese or Chinese. Um.
I think even today there's probably more Mexican restaurants. There's
not too many Hawaiian food restaurants, and for those that
(17:36):
are around, a lot of them are family owned, have
been around. Hiawaian is one of the older Hawaiian food restaurants.
Things are very simple back then. You know, you you
have your basic Hawaiian food staples Poi la la pipikla
trips do now lomi salmon, which is a really interesting
Hawaiian dish. This is this is where you start to
(17:58):
see how the introduction of different peoples and different groups
come into play. So here in Hawaii we have no salmon.
I was noting that. Okay, I'm glad you wrote it.
I'm glad you noted that. So you know, if you
think pre if you think about pre contact, when Hawaiian's arrived,
they had two mean migrations, the first one from the
(18:20):
Marquesses and the second one from Tahiti. And this is
all pre contact seventeen seventy and what they brought with
them on their or their canoe where things like taro
which we call calo in Hawaiian banana which is maya
coconut new um. They also brought bread fruit ulu um,
(18:40):
and they brought dog illegal chicken moa, and pigs poa,
and they brought things like even like our root, which
we call pia. So we do have a dessert at
highway in or a lot of point restaurants have this
is called how pia because originally it was made with
our roots and out instead of pia, we we use
(19:02):
corn starch to help me this dessert. But then you
see what happens in seventeen seventy eight and the early
eighteen hundreds is you start to see whalers and merchants
starting to arrive here in Hawaii, and what they start
bringing with them is salted fish. And they start seeing
that also Hawaiians have salts that you know, around the world,
(19:23):
salt is a very valuable commodity, of course, especially back then,
right and I believe the root word of salary actually
also derives from the words salt. Yeah, it's Latin. So
we have our common commentator in the background here, the
British commentator, the colonists and We have some more of
(19:49):
our interview with Monica, but first we have a quick
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you sponsored. Let's get back into the interview. The
sound of would actually was at one time something that
Hawaiian's actually treated as well sandal would before the pineapple
(20:12):
and trigger cane industry came about. But you know in
seventeen early eighteen hundreds, um now you see salted fish.
So that's how you see um loammi salmon. We have
this dish called pipecla. Captain George Vancouver actually gifted King
Kamehameha the first cattle. This eventually created the Paniola history,
(20:34):
which is the Hawaiian cowboy. They had a cock poo
on it, which cop kind of means like forbidden. So
can come in with the first you know, nobody could
touch this animal that they've never came across, which is
a cattle. And they had to bring the Mexican bakatos,
which I believe means he us your commentator, because ye so,
(21:05):
so they brought cattle and they didn't know what to
do with it. They didn't know how to manage this animal.
So they brought vocados and they taught Hawaiians how to ranch,
and so now we have peepecola peepe meaning beef like
strips or jerked beef. They would salted too, you know,
they cut up the animal they could preserve as much
needs by making it into like salted or jerky. And
(21:29):
so you have this story of pepecola. Now in the
Paniola Hawaiian cowboy history and different groups of people throughout
you know, the decades um brought over different types of products.
So like which you find is Don Francisco Marin Arizon, Honolulu,
(21:49):
and he starts bringing tomatoes. So now we have the
Hawaiian cevici, which is bumomy salmon. You get the salted fish,
and now you get this tomato that's all dye stuff.
And you have sam. And now it is a it's
a food item that comes post Western world contact. But
because it's been around since late seventeen hundreds, early in
(22:10):
eighteen hundreds, people have now adopted it as part of
the Hawaiian food culture. And so you see lemi san.
And the other thing that you see in the Hawaiian
food menu that is also influenced by another group of
people is our chicken long rice and I'm looking at
Dylan because he just ordered that yesterday. Okay, it was
so good. It was It's a very simple it's a
(22:33):
very simple dish. And and that's the thing, you know,
one of the things at Highway and I did create this.
What was most important for me when people who are
not familiar with Hawaiian food come and they eat with
us at Highway End, it really wanted them to understand
what I'm explaining right now, which is part of that
culture and that history. Because when you understand what has
(22:56):
happened here in the islands, then you can have a
great appreciation for why the food is the way that
it is. Otherwise you just can't appreciate it as much
because what you're doing is you're comparing native foods that
are simple in both in preparation, but it takes a
very long time. It's very laborious. Um. But you know,
(23:20):
if you think about seasonings, what do they have popkey
salt lemal like seaweed and they cook nuts just like
a tree nut for seasoning, and um, we didn't have
like cheeses and basil and spices. So you know, if
you compare it to other types of world cuisines, you
(23:43):
just don't have the layered flavors there. Um. But once
you understand the story, for example, like poi. I don't
know if anybody tried poi different currents okay, and different
varieties of Yeah, we had we had one that was
that was pretty for mented and one that was very
lightly prevented. Um. And I really like the sour kind honestly,
(24:05):
like it's it's it goes so well with the sweetness
of a roast pork. Yeah, and actually it's better to
eat it more sour. Sure it's health here for bacteria.
Black is blacktopius, and it's good for your microbiome, Yeah,
your microbiomem and and and so Hawaiians fundamentally understood this.
(24:28):
And and they have the same a poop akeye cock cole,
which means they would you know, pretty much put salts
in the poi because I was so sour, you know,
does scrape off all the furry stuff growing on it.
But some something with the with the poi created really
good bacteria for your gut and and colo for example,
(24:51):
So when people eat Hawaian food, I always say that
the most culturally significant dish is going to be the poi.
But from any other p sspective, it's probably the most unappealing.
I think. I think it's just I think it's just unexpected. Like, um,
(25:12):
we have a friend who's who grew up on Hawaiian
has only been in Atlanta for a few years, and
when we asked her what it's like, like what to expect,
she was like, you'll just find out. She's like, there's
no way to really explain it, like, yeah, yeah, to
experience it firsthand. Yeah, And it is like it's it's
strange like as as a you know, like like I
grew up in Ohio and and and the American South,
(25:33):
Like you know, there's nothing that's um that's kind of
sticky and and sour like that that like it's either
sticky or it's sour and that. So the combination of
that texture in the fire. Yeah. And and the thing
about it is I think you know, within the Pacific
and even Southeast Asia, taro is used throughout Southeast Asia
and through the Pacific. What is really I think you
(25:54):
need to Hawaiian culture is the fact that they pound
the taro so we call i and then it turns
into what we call put ei. So put ei is
it's very use only enough water to be able to
pound the poi or pound the tower. I'm sorry. And
then you get it into this form called put e
i and you wrap it in in tea leave to
(26:16):
keep it fresh, and once you're ready to actually you know,
eat it and share. Hawaiians is a culture, very generous,
generous culture. You add the poi so you can stretch
the colo, you can stretch the taro and share it
with other people. But also, like we spoke about earlier,
is that it it has a very healthy aspect to
to the product where the fermentation process occurs um. And
(26:40):
I don't think any other culture actually does this with
tarot in this way. I certainly hadn't. I wanted to
ask you about the about the tea leaves. That's a
that's also part of the cooking process for like a Yeah, yeah,
can you talk about what that adds to the us? Yeah,
(27:01):
So tea leaf is a really phenomenal product. Also in
Hawaiian culture, it's also used um. It's a special kind
of tea leaf that cockus or spiritual leaders use for blessings. Oftentimes,
when you hear like Pele the fire goddess upon Kilauea
that is you know, for the lava. They tell you
(27:23):
the folklore is put tea leaves around your house so
that sh'll go the lava will floor around your house.
So it's also um from a cultural and you know, perspective,
like a divine protection. In food, it's used to wrap things.
I saw this one restaurant actually, I think it's on
(27:43):
Maui there they were actually using tea leaf to wrap
their sandwiches so that it was zero waste. And I
was like, oh geez, we're gonna drive up the cost
for tea leaves now because now there's another use for
tea leaf. But what we use it for is to
wrap the law law in and then we steam it. Um.
It helps to keep the laula. If you've ever had allaala,
(28:07):
it's this wonderful bundle of joy of delicious pork. And
we call it butterfish, but most people know this fish
is black cod. It's a little tiny piece of black
cod and and it it helps to keep the shape
of the lau la and it also helps to keep
it from burning from so it does have this element
(28:29):
where it keeps the laala from being burnt. Look at
like a moisturization keeps the moisture in there, keeps the
lua leaves fresh. Um um. You need to steam the
laula for quite some time because you need to break
down the lua leaves. So it's it's called calcium oxalate.
(28:50):
And basically if you don't cook the lua leaves long enough,
it will make your mouth and your throat itchy. Oh yeah,
that's I'm sure it's just a protein breakdown of something
that like reacts that we react poorly to that this
allows us to process. Yeah, and so the lu all
leads really needs to be cooked and steamed a long
(29:13):
time or you might feel a little bit itchy in
your mouth. Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. But also to like
what I said when you CoA and you palm boys
also sometimes used to carry product, you know, to wrap product,
food product and as a way to be able to
transport it from one place to another. Sure, thank you
(29:34):
so much for speaking to the to the history of
the islands, and we absolutely agree that getting the history
of where people are from in those food waves is
critical to understanding Yeah, what you're doing here. I always like,
you know, people always say, well, what's your favorite what's
your favorite meal? And I like to say, I think
was really healthy in the Hawaiian food menu is a
(29:55):
bullet point because you have your complex car and it's fermented, right,
so you also have your fermented food and la la
which is you get your daily dose of greens, which
is like spinach or kale. You know, it has like
vitamin A, C, iron, calcium, you know, all that good stuff.
And then you have your protein you know, which is
(30:16):
your your pork, and you have your omega three witches
for which is from the black plot. You know. So
to me, I think like and and the funny thing
here too, I don need blood and a really good
you know. The girl said, well, you know, before you
go and donate blood, beside drinking a lot of water,
you should eat a lot of poke it and you
(30:36):
shoot a lot of poi poi and poke it. And
I was like, um, there's something about poke it which
is you know, Hawaiian cubed fish. And you know from
what I hear is that it's just like this this
rage across the country. And for us it's like saying, well, well,
spam musu be is the rage across the country which
would probably never happened, but um, poke a We've been
(30:58):
eating this for a long time and we don't we
don't get fussy about it here. We just keep the fish,
you know, put put throw some Hawaiian salt or you know,
put put some soy sauce or sesame oil, and you know,
eat it raw, eat it on its own, like as
we call it poopoos. I'm not sure if you've ever
heard that, so it's so again, it's one of those
things that's really funny. It's kind of like, would you
(31:19):
like some poopoos? And people are like, what, you know,
like poopoos? That sounds like, you know, that just sounds
like a really weird word, but it means appetizer or
you know, or DERs for for people that don't know.
But you know, we just eat it and we eat
it with chopsticks or fork or whatever. And you go,
you go on Instagram and they're just putting pineapple on
(31:41):
it and they're doing some crazy stuff with it and
and for people like here and when you're just like, yeah,
we don't eat it with pineapple. Yeah. Down the street
from my from my house, there is a poke chain
restaurant um with a poke bar where you can get
all kinds of different fish and different you can get
it served on top of like right, or or kale
(32:04):
or whatever it is. We don't, but you know, I
mean it's it's it's open to interpretation, right, I mean
that's basically food, food culture is it's open to interpretation.
So that's that's what you know here. And know what
we call people in the continental US Mainlanders, I don't
(32:26):
know what you guys call us, like, you know, just
like islanders in the middle of nowhere, um. But you
know on the mainland, you know, they've taken something that
we've grown up with and have interpreted in whatever culinary
palette that suits them, whether that's New York or the
Midwest or the West Coast and waiting for like poke
(32:49):
bagels things. Yeah, we actually did this thing where there's
a really great dessert. We get it once a week.
It's called kololo. Basically it's made out of taro, sugar, honey.
So we got some yesterday and it's a dessert that's
very hard to find. And what we did is it's
(33:10):
only good for like a day or two. So we
took it and we we made it into like a
ball and we put like polke in it and we
just try to fright up and see how that turned out.
And it was kind of really interesting because the consistency
of of coololo is kind of like if you're familiar
with um mochi, which is that very gelatin. I don't
(33:32):
know is the word witness rice? Right? You look like
you're still processing it, yeah, because it was the cheft
did that, and I was like, it tastes good, but
I don't know what to make of it because I've
never had this combination of texture together. What was the
was that you said poke and some inside inside and
then we like deep fried it? So was so was
(33:55):
the poke inside still like like raw? It was like
semi was like kind of like a little bit steamed,
a little seared. Yeah, I can't yea. So we do
that with rice balls? Oh yeah, so you do that
like here in Hawaii there's there's some places that will
take like a rice ball and put poke in the
middle and then so it's really crispy on the that
(34:16):
side and then you've got this fresh polk in inside
that's really pretty ummy. Um. But Hawaiian food is is
you know how it has changed over the years is
you know I think back then, like my grandparents time,
things were very simple. You know, it's very straightforward. You know.
People ask us, how do we get the name highway In. Well,
(34:39):
my grandparents first store was on Farrington Highway, which is
a stretch of road on the west side of o Wahoo.
And back then in the forties there were a few
popular restaurants Victoria in Colombia and with Terry and so
all the people in their seventies and eighties will fondly
remember these restaurants. Um and so he named it Highway In.
(35:02):
And so we're like, well, yeah, that's very uncreative, but
it works, you know. I mean it was I think
our our grandparents generation was very straightforward and very practical.
There was no such thing as marketing gimmicks and trying
to persuade you to buy their product on Instagram. And
I mean they're very simple, you know. And and and
now people create names in a way that they're much
(35:25):
more thoughtful in terms of what that name communicates to
to an audience, where whereas Highway In really just came
with the practicality of where it was located and in
that time period. And then interestingly enough, in we opened
Highway In on all a Wanta Boulevard, which is also
known as name Is Highway, so you know it works.
(35:46):
But here in Cocaco it is a different group of
not different and the same. Whereas we're very close to Waikiki,
so we do get more tourists, um, we get more
business people because we're also right next to downtown on Lulu,
which is our business district, and we have our local
families that come and eat with us, and so we
have a very diverse group of people that come and
(36:07):
eat with us here in Coca Acko. Alternatively, our Waipaca
location which is kind of like our starbooks at Pike's Market.
You know, it's the original, UM, but not in a
famous place like Pike's Market. It's in a place called Waipahu,
which means like gushing fresh water. We draw a lot
of our customers from places like non Akuli and Way
(36:30):
and I a lot of Native Hawaiian populations that are multigenerational.
So our customers in Waipa, who they know what they want.
They if we have specials, it doesn't matter to them.
Whereas our customers they come in and they're like, well,
you know, I'm vegan, what do you have And we're
(36:50):
like pois a little bit of salt haw kai U. Yeah,
but are but you know, joking aside, it is a
little bit more diverse in menu offerings more than our
white packet location. Because our customers here in Cocaco are
(37:14):
are are far more diverse than those in White Papa.
You know. I think we are really fortunate here in
a way. And and one thing I think that's really
great about the restaurant industry that I try to share
with our staff because my friend who owns another restaurant,
Tikis out in Waikiki, shared with me the restaurant industry
(37:35):
is unique in the sense that it's one of those
industries where, for the most part, not always, I mean,
you get those customers that you really prefer not to have,
but you know, it's it's to make people happy. You're
You're we're in an industry that you can make people happy.
You know. Unlike doctors and lawyers you know, E m
t s right there, they're always in difficult situations that
(37:57):
are not either people are fighting, where people are sick,
or you know, there's it's an emergency situation. Um, there's
a lot of pressure in the kitchen. But ultimately we
are in in a position to be a positive experience
in people's lives. And I think oftentimes restaurant people forget
this because it is very there's a lot of pressure,
(38:18):
and you know, our servers. I always like to share
with our servers that it's kind of like having a
hundred bosses every day. Get me this, I want this.
This is not good, you know. And and it's stressful
for our servers just as much as it's stressful for
our kitchen staff try to get the food out. But
the one thing here and what you think that makes
us quite unique and quite fortunate is the sense of aloha.
(38:43):
And and not to sound cliche about it, but we
do have this overarching cultural value of aloha which anybody
who is born and raised or moved to the islands
would be very aware of. And like all o you know,
like forward or presence ha meaning breath, you know, the
(39:04):
presence of life. To be compassionate, to show kindness, to
show grace. These are things that are just very much
a part of the Hawaiian culture, the host culture, and
and so it's much easier to try to train people
because they fundamentally understand this idea of aloha. This like
(39:27):
Southern hospitality, I guess would be a bit similar. They
have very unique type of hospitality perspective. Yeah, we're just
talking about that in the lift on the way over.
Those two people like Southern hospitality, and you know, the
Hawaiian hospitality is it's very much like that. And you know,
(39:47):
I think several people, including you know, my favorite President Obama,
you know, um, um, you know, I think it's I
think it's cool that you know, they oftentimes recognize the
place that they come from can be, you know, beacon
of hope for for the world. Obviously in our own
(40:10):
little microcosm. Even here in Hawaii, where life is cost
of living is so high, it's very stressful for families
here in Hawaii to make it work. And so a
lot of families here in Hawaii they are very stressed out,
you know, as a result of it. But we're fortunate
enough to have this cultural value of aloha. Um, what
(40:30):
are you looking forward to in the future? More help?
I can only think like one day at a time, mom.
And And you know, anybody who who runs a restaurant,
who works in a restaurant, you know understands, Um. There's
a lot of competition now I think I think there's
a lot of people that talk about over saturation in
(40:51):
the restaurant industry. Um, there's a lot of restaurants that
are in need of kitchen help. You know, we're we're
all very price sensitive in terms of you know, there's
minimum wage issues going up. How is that going to
affect menu prices? When you start increasing menu prices, you
start to become concerned about consumer demand flattening or softening.
(41:15):
Then you can't really give hours to your staff. You know.
There's also the other layer of of technology and how
technology comes into play in the Russian industry, and you know,
you see McDonald's, for example, utilizing this in terms of
having people go up to the kiosk and playing placing
their own order. And so I think technology is also
(41:36):
changing the industry. And um, you know, as cost increase,
you know, people are trying to find ways to minimize
cost it that it doesn't affect the menu prices in
a way that will affect the demand. And so you know,
everyone is just just really trying very hard right now.
It's it's a very tough business to be in. And
(41:57):
I give anybody in this this business and body who
owns it anybody who manages it, anybody who works in it,
deserves a lot of credit. Absolutely. Yeah, it's tough. Do
you see some begins of hope out there? I think
you know so what I share with you earlier, I'm
losing some key people, which is common. You know, it's
(42:18):
moving in the right direction. Just before this, I had
a video interview with with Commitment School Salt about some
of our artwork here in Cocackle, and right outside our
restaurant there's a mural that says this is a good
day or this was a good day. And it's a
great mural to have right outside my restaurant because when
(42:41):
you're having a really crappy day and you see this big,
you know, street art that says this this is a
good day, Um, kind of reminds you to appreciate all
the good things that happened, because it could always be worse.
We have a little bit more of this interview for you,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
(43:03):
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor,
and back to the interview. Every now and then we
end up burning our law law and we can't use it.
And unfortunately there's a nonprofit organization called a Local Harvest
(43:24):
and I called him up and it's like, do you
think you can, Like the leaves are not burnt, but
it just kind of has that smell like it's burnt,
but nothing is really burnt. And this is to feed
the hungry, and so they were willing to take it.
So at least forty six law law that has his
burnt smell went to feed the hungry. So it's smith
and all bad, but still that's great. It's great that
(43:46):
organization thinks. Yeah, if anybody ever visits us here out
at Highway in and you're not familiar with Hawaiian food,
asked for a malahini guy. I have this guy that
says smalahini eye to Hawaiian food. And my standing joke
is that momyhini doesn't mean idiot, it means and he's
a newcomer. So it's not the idiots guy to Hawaiian food.
(44:10):
It's the newcomers guy to Hawaiian food. Just for clarification purposes. Um.
But but it is a great piece because it has
pictures and it talks about pepe Kala and it talks
about the story of Lomi salmon and it talks about Poi,
and it talks about Klope and La Lau and and
so if you really want to experience culture through food,
(44:34):
that's a great place to start. It truly is a
universal language. When you sit down and you offer food
or you make food for someone, it truly is an
act of love. And and so you know, I tell
all my staff that, and I'm sure every chef, every
cook knows this. The secret ingredient is always going to
be aloha. It's always going to be love. Because if
(44:56):
you don't have the feeling of aloha when you're cooking,
or the feeling of love, you know that that's the
mana or the spiritual nous of that process is what
makes you care about it. And that's why Grandma's food
is always the best, right, I mean, anybody's grand fog
boy in my case is my grandpa. But you know
that's why grandma's and grandpa's you know, cook the best
(45:17):
because when they cook for their children and their grandchildren
is always infused with aloha. Oh I love that so much, right, Yes,
that she was full of beautiful, beautiful things like that.
That just made me appreciate so much the power of
(45:40):
food in the connection that it it brings us absolutely. Oh,
I want to I want to go back right now.
I know. I was telling Dylan last night because we
were talking about this producer Dylan, that spirit of Aloha
and missing it so much, and I was was recounting
(46:00):
the tail of when I was in seventh grade. I
had a teacher, my social studies teacher who I loved,
but he used one of those kind of gruff. Also
a gym teacher, teacher okay, okay, yeah, And on the
last day of seventh grade, we were joking with him
because he was all decked out and like a straw hat,
a Hawaiian shirt, all this stuff, and we were like, coach,
(46:23):
why are you what are you going to way? And
he said, in my mind, I'm already there. He said
it so seriously, and I think about it all the time,
so we can be there in our minds. It's not
the same, Lauren, it's it's not the same. Certainly for
my stomach, yes, but uh, but man, I need to
(46:44):
go order some Loco moco from somewhere a solutely. That
sounds amazing right now. So we hope you enjoyed that
interview as much as we did. And we would really
love to hear from you listeners. You can email us
at hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on
(47:06):
social media. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter
and Facebook at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(47:28):
are coming your way
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Lauren Vogelbaum
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.