There are many ways to look at the origins of food, from where food is grown and produced to the kinds of food that are served at the family dinner table. "Family Ingredients," an hourlong documentary spotlighting chef Alan Wong’s personal culinary history, followed Wong and chef-host Ed Kenney to Wahiawa, where Wong was raised, and Japan, where much of the food he grew up on originated.
The show was screened for culinary students in Leeward Community College’s special-events class, who then were assigned to pick a family dish and contemporize it for the semester’s end fine-dining dinner, to be presented Friday at the school’s Pearl restaurant.
"With this generation, most families don’t eat around the dinner table anymore. For previous generations it’s an important part of who we are," said LCC chef-instructor Linda Yamada. "This was a way to get them thinking about their own culinary foundation, why they eat the way they do. In some cases it forced them to talk to their grandparents or parents and look into what was eaten and why."
Yamada said students were guided by chef mentors to update and refine the home-style dishes.
Included on the menu is Shrimp Mofongo (fried plantain) with Ajili Mojili sauce, created from the classic Puerto Rican dish, and Phyllo Crusted Creamy Tuna Risotto, which had its origins in cream of tuna.
"Our challenge was to keep the flavor profile and create a contemporary version," said Yamada.
Student Dale Ramiro, 22, decided to work with his grandfather’s escabeche dish, fish marinated in a sauce of tomato, vinegar, brown sugar and shoyu, then fried. He said the dish originated in Spain and was brought to the Philippines when the Spanish colonized the country.
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LCC SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER
>> Where: The Pearl restaurant, Leeward Community College, 96-045 Ala Ike St.
>> When: 6 p.m. Friday
>> Price: $70, $85 with wine
>> Reservations: 455-0298
‘FAMILY INGREDIENTS’ REPLAYS
>> Airs: 9 p.m. Nov. 21 on KHET
>> The documentary will be an in-flight video on Hawaiian Airlines from December through March.
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"Filipino escabeche uses tomatoes to create most of the tartness; it uses less vinegar than the original version," he said.
The contemporary riff off Grandpa’s dish is a kampachi escabeche. The fish is fried but not marinated; rather, the "marinade" is served as a sauce. It comprises a tomato water base, fish sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, shoyu, shiitake mushroom, bell pepper, onion, shallot, ginger and garlic. The fish is presented in fillet form with crisped skin and a longanisa sausage made by Ramiro.
Ramiro was born and raised in the Philippines. He moved to Hawaii in 2002. He grew up eating his grandfather’s escabeche, calling it "one of my favorites." Thinking of the dish brings memories of meals with family.
"Most of the time in the Philippines, we had to eat together. It was one of my grandparents’ house rules. If someone was late from work or school, we had to wait," he said. "Everyone had to eat together, at the same table every night.
"Now my family hardly sees each other. My parents work all the time; I work all the time. I miss that."
