But dat brings us back to da plate lunch!” Luke waved towards the illuminated menu above the counter. “Half of that food is Japanese, like the rice, teriyaki, and the mochiko chicken. But kalua pig is Hawaiian. The mandoo and kal bi are Korean. The beef stew is basically beef adobo. That and lumpia are Filipino. Let’s see, what else? Something’s gotta be Chinese.” He squinted at the menu. “Saimin is a cross between Chinese noodles and Japanese ramen. It’s not up there, but gon lo mein is Chinese. That’s a local staple and something that exists only in Hawaii, just like crispy gau gee min. You not gonna find either one of those in China or on the mainland. And that place with the big pink sign we passed on the way up this road here? That’s malasadas, which are kinda like Portuguese donuts. Or, ‘Portagee,’ as they say here. Everything else on the menu is just poor-man’s food, chili, hot dog, hamburger patties with gravy, Spam—food dat’s cheap, salty and starchy, stuff you eat when you’re gonna be out in the hot sun chopping sugar cane all day. Plus some haole food if it’s good, like pancakes. That menu is local history in a nutshell.”
Luke lays out the ethnogenesis of the Hawaiian plate lunch. #WIPsnips #counter #writesky #literaryfiction #platelunch
