Japanese American Food: The Mixed Plate

Plantations and other communities in Hawaii were mixing bowls of races and cultures in which people shared meals across ethnic lines. Children traded lunches at school: a musubi for a jelly sandwich, char siu (Chinese roast or barbecued pork) for chicken stew, Korean kimchi for salt fish and rice, or a native Hawaiian laulau for toasted mochi. Their parents working in the fields did the same.

The first Japanese-owned restaurants in Hawaii did not prepare Japanese food. They served standard American food such as meat and potatoes and some “ethnic” foods, which meant rice, with a bottle of shoyu on the table. Two “traditions” were evolving. The first was a version of mainland food transformed by Japanese and Chinese restaurateurs. The second was a mixture of traditions of the Asian cooks that made up the classic mixed plate. Lunch wagons, food stalls, and okazuya (Japanese Hawaiian delicatessens selling a variety of prepared foods) serve continually changing versions of the plate. The following typical menu served through the side window of a lunch wagon reflects the meals shared on the plantations in the past:

• Rice (pan-Asian)

• Kimchi (chili-flavored pickle, Korean)

• Takuan (radish pickle, Japanese)

• Stir-fried vegetable with noodles (Chinese)

• Teriyaki chicken or beef (Japanese)

• Beef stew (Portuguese)

• Pigs feet (Portuguese)

• Chorizo (Portuguese)

• Chicken long rice (Chinese noodle dish)

• Pork chops (Chinese or Portuguese)

• Saimin (Chinese)

• Hamburger (mainland)

• Spam (mainland)

• Hot dogs (mainland)

• Lumpia (Philippines)