Photo Gallery: From Mom’s house to the motherland

There’s a whole world in a dish of tamago kake gohan (raw egg over hot rice) or a bowl of miso soup with tofu. Just ask Alan Wong and Ed Kenney. The two Hawaii celebrity chefs traveled from their restaurant kitchens in Hono­­lulu to Wong’s hometown of Wahiawa, and then on to Japan, to explore the dishes he grew up on.

The duo visited two family businesses that supplied Wong’s mother, Terry Yamamoto, with the staples she relied on to feed her family. She didn’t have to travel far. Petersons’ Upland Farm and Honda Tofu were and still are right in the town.

"I moved to Wai­pio in 1965 when I was in the fourth grade, and every weekend we visited Peterson farm to get eggs for the week," Wong recalled. His mother moved to Hawaii from Japan, while his father was still stationed there for the U.S. Army, to give her children the opportunities America could offer. "I was classmates with one of the Honda children. Kids from the Peterson family were also classmates."

Today, as a chef and restaurant owner, Wong sources all his tofu from Honda and his eggs from Peterson.

"It’s a cool thing to support the businesses in your hometown," he said.

Wong’s story perfectly illustrates the ties of family, food, community and culture, and this makes him the perfect first guest on a new television show, "Family Ingredients," a locally produced program examining ethnic roots through food. Kenney hosts. The hourlong episode is a pilot for what its producers are hoping will become a half-hour series.

"Family Ingredients" delves deep into the origins of Wong’s beloved tamago kake gohan with the visit to Japan, where his mother was born and raised. Wong and Kenney, part of a nine-member team, spent nine days in Japan, where they were met with a culture steeped in tradition.

"We visited farms and restaurants hundreds of years old. An oyako-don restaurant was 250 years old, run by eight generations," said Kenney of Tama-hide, which has served the egg-and-chicken dish since 1760.

"Japan is a nation obsessed with food and ingredients, from three-star Michelin restaurants to train station holes-in-the-wall," said Wong. "It’s a paradise for food lovers because they take pride in everything they do."

The highlight of the trip for Kenney was the crew’s visit to Hachisu Farm, an organic family farm that practices the locavore values Kenney promotes in Hawaii.

"I had the best time at the Hachisu home," he said. "The family has been a part of the community for 400 years. They source their food and fish locally. This place is what the show is all about — the people you meet eating and sharing together."

The current generation running the farm is Nancy Singleton Hachisu and Tadaaki Hachisu. Nancy Hachisu, originally from California, is the author of the popular cookbook "Japa­nese Farm Food," which chronicles her lifestyle in rural Sai­tama prefecture.

"The Hachisu farm grows rice and vegetables and is also an egg farm, so it was perfect to visit them. It was all-in-one," said Wong with regard to profiling the components of tamago kake gohan.

In fact, Tadaaki Hachisu’s preparation fascinated Wong, whose fine cuisine is often inspired by humble comfort dishes.

"I’ve never seen it done that way before, but his kake gohan was light, airy and foamy on top. When he stirs it, he moves the bowl to aerate it," Wong said. "Watching him gave me a point of origin. Now I have a different perspective on the egg-rice thing. Now I’m thinking about how I’m going to pre­sent this dish."

The passion in front of the camera was matched behind the scenes.

"Family Ingredients" was the brainchild of executive producer Heather Giu­gni, an independent filmmaker who has built a career telling stories about and for Hawaii. But this series about food, travel and family will appeal to a much broader audience, and Giu­gni believes that because Hawaii’s diversity puts it ahead of the cultural curve, the islands have something to offer other communities.

"I thought, Hawaii looks like what the mainland will look like soon. Right now, ‘immigration’ is a bad word on the mainland, but here we honor our immigrant history. It’s what multiculturalism is all about," she said.

Giugni’s production team includes food advocate Dan Naka­sone, who serves as producer and researcher, and Ty Sanga, who took on directing duties. Sanga is a prolific young filmmaker whose 2011 Hawaiian-language short film, "Stones," was presented at the Sundance Film Festival.

As for Kenney, Giu­gni approached him to host the show after hearing him speak at a dinner.

"I saw his tats (tattoos) and thought, this is someone who could step into both sides of the food community. He was mentored by Hawaii Regional Cuisine chefs but could also tap into the new movement," she said. "He’s amazing — very generous, very humble, great politics and great passion."

With a solid team behind it, Giu­gni believes "Family Ingredients" has the legs to become a successful series. She’s set her sights on profiling local folks with food origins in the Philippines, Korea, China and Okinawa.

"There are European backgrounds, too," she said in pondering Season 2.

"There’s also the Hawaiian story …"

Since returning from Japan, Sanga has been busy scouring the hours of video shot for the pilot.

"In finding the story, I’ve also been creating the style of the show," he said. "First, going back to Japan to learn about the dish and the different ingredients means we have a lot of foodie sections. Next, there’s Alan learning about who he is. Weaving these sections together is the main goal. As we were filming, I was already seeing the connections, so it pretty much happened organically."

Aside of that footage, Sanga said he wanted the chefs to be themselves on camera. "After all, this is reality TV," he quipped.

Their authentic curiosity provides the audience with a deeper understanding of the ties between Japan’s food and communities.

"Ed and Alan are so knowledgeable, when we sent them out to restaurants and to meet important people like farmers, they took away so much," Sanga said. "They see the farming and the culture, and how communities are dependent on one another. As their awareness of this grows, so does ours. They’re surrogates for all of us."