Last week I wrote about ways that those “back in the States” misunderstand Hawaii — some think we all live in grass shacks, surf, have hula hoops and eat pizza with pineapple.
But what about locals who have gone to the mainland and misunderstood the food, language or culture there? In the interest of fairness, here’s the flip side of the story.
Team Feta vs. Team Retsina
Ken Fujii said he attended Northwestern University near Chicago before statehood in 1959. “I had a friend, Bill Panagopoulos, whose family lived in DeKalb, a small town in the middle of the cornfields of Illinois.
“His parents, Dimitrios and Diana, were immigrants from Greece, and they were anxious to show me their Greek hospitality, as they thought of me as a fellow immigrant from far away.
“The first night that I visited the Panagopoulos’ home, Diana asked me what kind of food she should make. She was very relieved when I told her that I would like to try Greek food, and I did not need nor want any special Hawaiian food. And she really did give me a robust Greek food initiation that night.
“We started with cold Greek avgolemono, which was a chicken and rice soup with tempered raw egg yolks and lemon juice, accompanied by Greek dolmathes (simmered grape leaves stuffed with an herbal rice and lamb mixture).
“She announced to everyone that she made it for me because she had heard that people in Hawaii love rice. And everyone glanced at me and nodded and murmured their agreement. Although it was rice, it was a totally foreign taste experience for me, not like any other rice I had ever tried at home on Hawaii island.
“And then she passed around a plate stacked with Greek olives and cubes of a solid white pupu that looked like tofu. And I thought, wow, she’s gone out of her way to get tofu for me! What a treat.
“I took three white cubes on my plate, and when I put the first cube in my mouth, I immediately knew that it was NOT tofu. It was rather soft, pungent and tangy, and smelled like a rancid wet rag from under the sink.
“As I chewed the cube, the increasing smell wafted up my nostrils. I nearly gagged from the rancid aroma, and my eyes teared up.
“Diana saw me and said, ‘Looka atta Ken, he lovva the goat feta so much, he’s a cry with happy.’
“She mistook my tears of agony for tears of happiness and then took the plate of feta and scraped about half a dozen more cubes onto my plate. I barely had time to signal for her to stop. I said that I would like to save some space for the rest of the meal.
“I gasped that I needed something to drink. Dimitrios poured me a glass of Greek retsina wine. Diana was so happy that her food was bringing me to tears.
“But now the retsina gave me another reason to choke and tear up because retsina is a wine which is flavored with pine resin. And it tasted and smelled like turpentine or paint thinner.
“I now had a battle going on in my mouth and nose, with Team Feta vs. Team Retsina, like a battle between Athens and Sparta. And the battlefield was my mouth.
“My abundant tears were convincing the entire family that I was enjoying my meal.
“The rest of the meal was not so tear-inducing. The Greek salad, the lamb souvlaki (on skewers) and the fried potatoes were all tasty. And the dessert of apple- cherry strudel elevated me to an even happier state.
“In retrospect, my introduction to Greek food was something which I will never forget, both wonderful and memorable.”
Tofu
Toby Kravet said this reminded him of the time in Boston in the late 1960s “when my new girlfriend from Hawaii, who was going to college in Boston, (which is where we met and how I ultimately ended up here), decided to cook me a local meal.
“She asked if I would pick up some tofu from a grocery store in Boston’s Chinatown which was a few blocks away from where I worked.
“When I went into the tiny store that day and asked for tofu, nobody knew what it was. I didn’t, either. I went back to my office to call my girlfriend (these were the days before cellphones), and she told me it was bean curd.
“I went back to the store and, of course, they had it. I believe tofu is a Japanese word, and this was a Chinese grocery store. Maybe it was my pronunciation?
“All I know is that thereafter, every time I would pass on the sidewalk, one of the clerks would point at me and laughingly yell, ‘Tofu, tofu.’”
Ken Fujii in reverse
Regina (Dionisopoulos) Mass told me, “My husband and I really enjoyed Ken Fujii’s story about his first Greek meal at his roommate’s family’s home in DeKalb, Ill.
“I am also a Greek American from DeKalb. My husband accepted a one-year visiting scientist position at UH in 1978. This was to be a one-year adventure in paradise. It lasted 39 years.
“On our third day in Hawaii, we ate dinner at the East-West Center cafeteria. As we went through the line, my husband took a plate of feta cheese for us to share. He broke off a piece, got a pained look on his face and told me the feta was spoiled.
“I tried a piece and told him I had never had such bland feta. He took the plate to the cashier to tell her it was spoiled, so it could be removed from the line.
“He returned and told me it wasn’t feta. He said it (was) something called tofu! The very same story as Ken’s, told in reverse!”
Doufu
Ken Fujji responded, “The anecdote from Toby Kravet about his experience seeking tofu at a Chinese grocery store reminds me of my experiences at Chinese restaurants on the mainland in the olden days. Waiters would sometimes say that they did not have a bean curd dish if I requested ‘tofu.’
“I would have to use the Chinese word, which is ‘doufu,’ which actually sounds very similar to ‘tofu.’ So if I asked for tofu, they would say, ‘Sorry, no serve tofu.’ But if I asked for doufu, I would get the dish.
“So my suspicion is that when Toby later passed the store where the Chinese clerk would shout at him, I think that the clerk was probably shouting, ‘doufu, doufu’ to emphasize the Chinese pronunciation of bean curd to him (not ‘tofu, tofu’).
“However, today, fifty years later, the Japanese word ‘tofu’ has overtaken the Chinese ‘doufu’ and is generally accepted.
Manapua?
Fujii said he was similarly confused when ordering manapua at a Chicago Chinese restaurant.
“The waiter just looked at me and said, ‘We no have manapua!’ And after I insisted that they must have manapua, the waiter brought out a chef who had spent time in Hawaii to translate.
“In Chicago we call it char siu bao,” the chef told him. “Manapua is Hawaii plantation slang.”
“They did have char siu bao, and so I got my manapua fix for lunch. And it was a tasty reminder of home.”
Do you have a story about a misunderstanding between Hawaii and the mainland? If so, let me know.
The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. Join and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!
