Makes 16 servings. Source: files of the Hawaii State School Food Services program
Sweet-Sour Spare Ribs (or Pork Chunks) 4 to 5 lbs. pork spare ribs (with “soft” bones) or chunks of pork butt Seasoned flour (optional, see below) 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 to 3 inches peeled fresh ginger, grated or minced ½ cup soy sauce ½ cup brown sugar ½ cup white vinegar 1 (20-oz.) can pineapple chunks in juice Cornstarch (optional, see below) Sesame seeds for garnish (optional)
Approach 1: Cook on stovetop with thickened gravy: Lightly dredge the spare ribs or pork chunks in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. In a large Dutch oven, fry pork pieces in vegetable oil; drain fat. Add garlic, ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and pineapple juice; cook over medium heat, sim- mering 30 to 40 minutes or longer until pork is tender; add pineapple chunks toward the end of the cooking time. Thicken juices with cornstarch, as desired (whisk in cornstarch, bring juices to a boil, turn down heat ,and serve).
Approach 2: Cook in oven with thin gravy: Marinate pork with ginger and garlic in soy sauce, brown sugar, white vinegar, and pineapple juice for at least one hour, turning occasionally. Preheat oven to 325°. Place pork mixture in a large, heavy Dutch oven and bake in oven for 30 minutes; stir and turn meat; and cook another 30 minutes until pork is very tender. Add pineapple chunks toward the end of the cooking time.
In either case, serve hot with steamed rice; garnish with sesame seeds, if desired.
Makes 8 to 10 servings. Optional: Add 1 star anise during cooking or ½ teaspoon Chinese five-
spice powder. Early recipes also routinely used Aji-no-moto (MSG). Source: files of the Hawai‘i State School Food Services program
and various community cookbooks
School Lunch in Hawai‘i
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Mrs. Tyau’s Spanish Beans Drizzle of oil or spurt of vegetable spray 1 lb. ground beef or finely chopped luncheon meat or ham or raw bacon 1 small onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons soy sauce 2 teaspoons sugar 2 (15-oz.) cans green beans (or equivalent defrosted frozen beans or steamed
fresh beans, cut into 1½-inch lengths) 2 (8-oz.) cans tomato sauce ¾ to 1 cup thin poi Cooked rice
In a large, deep sauté pan or wok, heat vegetable oil or vegetable oil spray over medium-high heat; add meat, lower heat to medium, and brown meat. Drain away excess fat (reserving a little for caramelizing the vegetables). Fry onion and garlic over medium to medium-low heat until onions are limp and translucent. Add soy sauce, sugar, green beans, tomato sauce, and meats, and cook until heated through. Thicken juices with poi.
Makes 4 to 6 servings. Source: The late cafeteria manager Mrs. Eleanor Tyau, Saint
Louis School
Beef Niblets 2 tablespoons canola or other vegetable oil 2 pounds cooked pot roast, roughly chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 round onion, sliced 1 to 2 cans low-sodium chicken or beef broth 2 drained cans or 1 bag frozen corn Cornstarch for thickening gravy Salt and pepper to taste
Brown beef in oil; add garlic and onion. Pour in broth, and simmer until beef is tender. Add corn. Whisk together 1 to 2 tablespoons juices with 1 tablespoon cornstarch (more if the dish is very juicy). Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Makes 6 to 8 servings, with mashed potatoes or rice. Source: Phyllis Dolim Savio, former student, Saint Anthony
School, Wailuku, Maui
Christine R. Yano (with Wanda Adams)
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Kaimuki High School Hawaiian Curry 6 tablespoons margarine or butter 1 medium onion, finely chopped 2 teaspoons peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger 6 tablespoons flour 1½ teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon curry powder 2 cups room-temperature milk 1 cup room-temperature coconut milk 3 cups cooked shrimp, chicken, veal, lamb, or fish Condiments: sliced bananas, chutney, chopped preserved ginger, chopped
nuts, sieved hard-boiled eggs, crumbled bacon, grated and toasted fresh coconut
Melt margarine or butter and sauté onion and ginger. Add flour, curry powder, and salt; blend thoroughly. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly. Cook until thickened and smooth. Add shrimp, meat, or fish, and cook just until heated through. Serve with hot rice and condiments.
Source: Seventeen magazine prize-winning recipe from Kai- muki High School cooks. School lunches usually didn’t serve condiments, but very light, unspicy, white sauce– based curries were common.
Baked Spaghetti ¾ package of dried spaghetti 1 lb. hamburger ½ medium onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, chopped 1 can button mushrooms, with liquid 1 package spaghetti sauce mix 1 (6-oz.) can tomato paste 1 (15-oz.) can tomato sauce 1 tablespoon butter, softened Spices to taste: basil, oregano, garlic powder, or salt Shredded cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 300°. Cook and drain spaghetti; toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Some schools cut the cooked spaghetti into short lengths; others left it whole. Brown hamburger and drain fat. Add onions and garlic,
School Lunch in Hawai‘i
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and simmer until onion is limp and translucent. Add mushrooms with liq- uid. Make spaghetti sauce according to package directions, and add paste and sauce. In a large bowl, combine spaghetti, hamburger/onion/garlic mixture, and spaghetti sauce. Spoon into a buttered 9” × 13” baking dish. Top gener- ously with cheddar cheese. Bake at 300° for 30 minutes (do not cover).
Makes 8 to 10 servings. Source: Files of the Hawai‘i State School Food Services program
and Bev Pace Notes: Mrs. Eleanor Tyau memorably fried chopped, uncooked bacon
with hamburger for this dish. Many cafeterias made their own pomodoro (tomato sauce) from scratch and used spices and garlic very lightly because of children’s timid tastes.
Apple Brown Betty 4 cups coarsely chopped day-old bread (or dry chopped bread in 325° oven) ½ cup butter, melted; plus 1 tablespoon softened butter for dish 4 tart cooking apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced ⅓ cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon grated or finely chopped fresh ginger 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3 tablespoons apple juice Whipped cream or hard sauce*
Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly butter a 2-qt. casserole or baking dish. In a large bowl, drizzle melted butter over chopped bread. In another bowl, com- bine apples, brown sugar, lemon juice, ginger, and cinnamon.
Assemble brown betty: Spread one-third of buttered bread crumbs in cas- serole dish; top with one-half of apple mixture. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon apple juice. Repeat bread and apple layers. Top with remaining bread.
Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes; uncover and bake another 30 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or hard sauce.
* Recipes for classic hard sauce, a thick mixture of soft butter and sugar, can be found online or in older cookbooks.
Source: Files of the Hawai‘i State School Food Services program
Notes 1. Wanda Adams is a former food columnist of the Honolulu Advertiser. Besides her expe-
riences as a journalist, she brings the perspective of her own background as someone who grew up on Maui in the 1950s and 1960s in a Caucasian family, first attending
Christine R. Yano (with Wanda Adams)
50
Catholic school and then public intermediate and high schools. The Honolulu Advertiser was one of two dailies in Honolulu until it was sold in June 2010.
2. The Ewa-Waipahu district of Honolulu county (island of O‘ahu) encompasses a broad area characterized generally by lower socioeconomic strata than central Honolulu, with a racial-ethnic admixture that reflects the presence of the U.S. military (white, some black), former agricultural workers (Filipinos, Japanese), and younger families seeking cheaper housing (white, other Asian).
3. My attribution of ethnicity to these women is in part by their names (although these are married names), in part by the way they look (although it might be difficult to distinguish other women of Asian ancestry), and in part by the reputation of those who worked as cafeteria ladies (primarily those of Japanese ancestry—including Okinawan— but also some of Chinese or Korean ancestry). Of the fourteen present at the lunch, only one woman was not Asian. All the others’ names were Japanese: Doi, Fujita, Kakazu, Kiyabu (Okinawan), Kondo, Maeda, Nakasone (Okinawan), Oshiro (Okinawan), Saito, Sugai, Tanabe (2), Wakatsuki.
4. My intention in beginning this project was to write a full history of school lunch in Hawai‘i, beginning with the establishment of the public school system, and to that end, I turned first to archival data for documentation. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, that documentation does not exist, especially since records have been regularly expunged by the School Food Services office in Honolulu. Although the documented history—and my goal of a book—has thus been lost, I have attempted a partial retrieval through interviews with older cafeteria managers and patrons.
5. These interviews are available online at http://www.nfsmi.org. The women inter- viewed were (alphabetically): Janice Low (ethnicity unknown, but likely Chinese American), cafeteria manager and other food-service positions in school lunch pro- grams on all six islands of Hawai‘i since 1977; Donna Matsufuru (Japanese American sansei), school food service supervisor for the state of Hawai‘i and various positions in food service from 1972 onward; Doris Yaeko Mau (Japanese American nisei mar- ried to a Chinese American), retired cafeteria manager (thirty-eight years since the 1960s) and past president of the O‘ahu School Food Service Association; Nancy Miura (Okinawan American nisei originally from Maui, Honolulu Vocational School degree in school food service management), retired cafeteria manager, past president of the O‘ahu School Food Service Association, and various school food service positions since 1954; Peggy Nakamoto (Japanese American, Honolulu Community College degree in cafeteria management), retired cafeteria manager and past president of O‘ahu School Food Service Association, and various school food service positions since 1968); and Sue Uyehara (white, originally from Louisiana, married to Okinawan American; M.A. in public health and nutrition from the University of Hawai‘i), state director of the Child Nutrition Program since 2006. I found this information in inter- views and photographs.
6. Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).
7. See the appendix for Adams’s sampling of recipes. 8. Gary Allen Fine, Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work (Berkeley: University of