Whenever I post a picture of what my kids are eating for breakfast, whether it be pancakes or cereal, I don’t get many comments on our social media accounts. Which is to be expected, because they’re both common breakfast dishes in most households.
But, when I post a photo of them eating local Hawaiian cuisine like spam, eggs, and rice or loco moco, I get many comments asking “What is that?” or unfortunately, sometimes “gross!”
What others think of as “gross,” we in Hawaii find extremely tasty. These dishes, common to our local Hawaiian cuisine, are a mixture of what Hawaii used to be back in the Plantation era when immigrants from China, Korea, Portugal, Japan, and the Philippines all came to the islands to work in the pineapple and sugar cane fields.
Blending these cuisines created what we call today local Hawaiian food. It’s an entirely different style of cooking, unique to the Hawaiian islands. Without it, we would be missing out on all of this multi-cultural charm.
These foods bring back memories for our great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and now our own children. The local Hawaiian cuisine dishes have become synonymous with our upbringing and way of life. I mean if you’ve never had a manapua in Hawaii and have lived here more than 10 years, what’s going on?! You need to make that happen, immediately!
The kid-foodies thought it would be great to create a video of some of our local Hawaiian cuisine that children here love to eat.
We’d love to hear what food items or habits are different from your country or city. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.
Mahalo!
