Surfing the Wave of Island Fever

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

The earthquake that hit Hawaii last weekend was especially close to home. I had just returned from a week of island hopping for business less than a week before. One of my best friends was in her hometown of Honolulu visiting her family. An old roommate had just relocated to Maui in an effort to find herself. And of all places in the world where I have worked, I've never met a friendlier, more welcoming group of people. No one could be less deserving of a natural disaster.

With the phone lines tied, I finally got through to my friend in Honolulu hours after the quake and some 20 aftershocks later. She assured me that all were safe and accounted for. Save for no electricity, her now delayed return flight, and some long lines at the gas station, it seemed that both Hawaiians and tourists were taking the catastrophe in stride. Since no one had electricity, it appeared people were doing the best thing they could do: barbecuing and surfing!

That moment spent in the face of upset and disaster seemed to capture the impression that a week of eating in Hawaii had left with me. Rule #1: All are welcome. Nearly every culture is represented in the cuisine some place on the islands. Rule #2: Anything goes. With so many cuisines in the mix, you'd be able to find a fusion of Korean-Polynesian-American Shopping Mall cuisine if you looked hard enough. Rule #3: Happiness is the thing, and health is incidental. This struck me as an anomaly. After all, the year-round perfect weather and abundance of the freshest fish, rice, and vegetables in the country should result in a population of perfect bodied, athletic men and women. But noting the number of overweight but happy locals with a taste for a daily “plate lunch,” the island comfort food, I realized that the reality is somewhat different.

Most of the immigrants to the islands over the years have hailed from Asian countries, and aside from a few Americans, the large majority of tourists are from Japan. That means that the local cuisine has taken aspects of far-flung cultures to create a truly unique taste of its own. For instance, at breakfast one has the option of potatoes or rice with one’s omelet. Regardless of the choice, it is served up with soy sauce and Tabasco at the table.

Then there is the famous plate lunch, a customary meal by which I am still baffled. The choices at a plate lunch joint range from chicken fried steak smothered in brown gravy with fries and a side of macaroni salad, to sai-men noodles fried with kimchi, fish cake, and pork with a side of, you guessed it, macaroni salad (The most famous Hawaiian food phenomenon--Spam--I chose not to investigate during my stay).

Given that you are on an island, if you wanted to you could eat fish at every meal. The freshness and quality of the fish is unparalleled anywhere else in America. Maui’s most famous restaurant, Mama’s Fish House, offers up its daily fish selection not only by type, but it also goes so far as to tell you where the fish was caught and by which
fisherman. At the home of my Hawaiian friend, I was treated to a traditional island spread that included fish in at least three different dishes, all prepared simply and mostly raw. These three fish dishes were part of about a ten-dish spread clearly meant to keep the food, fun and conversation flowing well into the evening (which it did, indeed!).

If you were stranded on a island, be it from an earthquake at a densely populated tourist destination, or by a plane crash landing into a JJ Abrams TV show, the things you need to make the most of the situation all seem to be pretty much the same. Aside from clean drinking water, if you have an ocean to play in, you have an ocean to fish in. You therefore have food and fun to tide you over until the storm has passed.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 1 pound fresh salmon, skin removed and cleaned of bones
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1 sheet nori
• 1 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 maui sweet onion, finely diced
• 1 serrano chili, seeded and diced
• 1/4 teaspoon Hawaiian red salt or Kosher salt to taste
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/4 cup mirin plus extra if the mixture seems dry
• sushi rice or other short grained white rice, cooked
• nori sheets
• bread or toasted wonton wrappers