nosh nook #144 - thursday, october 1, 2009

"best of hawaii" 2009: our favorite hawaii snacks (link)
09.30.09 - hawaii magazine - by derek paiva

one of these days, i'm going to actually leave the continental united states. mark my words. until then, i'm going to continue to build my fantasy about what hawaii's actually like. here's what i've put together: aloha means both "Hello" & "goodbye." they have seventy words for snow. the waters are blue & the greens are green. there are coconut & macadamia trees everywhere. because of some sort of island sorcery, they can see into the future & had the foresight to print a birth announcement for president obama in the newspaper even though we all know that he's secretly a muslim who was actually born somewhere in deep africa. sorcery conspiracy! also, when you first arrive & get off the plane/boat, there are hot hawaiian chicks waiting on the runway to lei you. that's pretty much what the islands are all about. well, that & they like rainbows.

hawaii magazine recently came out with their "best of hawaii" issue (on newstands now!), so they've been putting sections of it up on their website. yesterday, they shared four of their "favorite hawaii snacks and our favorite places to get 'em." their first snack is poke, which was "traditionally bite-size raw fish...mixed with salt, seaweed and kukui nuts, but these days there’s no end to the delicious variations." in hawaii, you're not allowed to have a party or even a beer without poke. that's island law for ya! next up is "hawaii chips," which are "crisp, kettle-cooked slices of kalo (taro), ulu (breadfruit) and yellow and purple sweet potato." they're basically a better version of terra chips.

their third snack is musubi, which looks friggin crazy. it's often made with spam, a block of rice & some nori, but the one they mention--mana bu--makes thirty different kinds of the stuff. their last snack choice is shave ice, which is exactly what it sounds like. some ice, some flavor. some refreshment. hmm. they didn't even include crack seed in the list. must be because of the crack seed epidemic. anyway, there's a pic that accompanies the article of obama & the first daughters eating shaved ice. it's good to see that he's visiting there every once in a while to make the whole birth story look good. maybe if he goes there enough times, people will start believing that he actually was born there. i mean, i won't, but people believe some crazy things these days.

nosh nook #11 - monday, march 30, 2009

when we used to eat real crack seed (link)
03.29.09 - the honolulu advertiser - by lee cataluna

aloha. it turns out that in hawaii, there's a crack epidemic...a crack seed epidemic! if you're like me & have absolutely no idea what crack seed is, let's go over it together.  as it is, i could probably use a refresher. as best as i can tell, crack seed is a type of snack popular in hawaii, made up of fruits that have been preserved/dehydrated & cracked, leaving the flavorful seeds exposed. hawaiians even have a place called the "crack seed center" & it's been in business for over 40 years!  here is a random video of two children trying some crack seed.

so what's happened to the crack seed? as lee cataluna's article explains, it was once a popular hawaiian snack but has since faded from glory. the crack seed center doesn't even have that much crack seed. as she explains, crack seed is "a snack that requires the deliberate action of separating out sharp little pit shards with your tongue and frequently spitting them out."  that just sounds dangerous.  like smoking, no wonder it's not as popular as it used to be.

since this month marks the 50th anniversary of eisenhower signing the hawaii admission act into law, i guess it's about time that they finally give up the traditions they'd inherited from chinese immigrants centuries earlier in favor of our crappy american traditions.  mainland traditions.  none of that crazy island crack seed stuff.  americans love quick & easy, cheap & fast, pre-packaged foods.  if it's more complicated than a sunflower seed, it's not worth our precious american time.  aloha.