Yet networking with fellow chefs, they shared boredom with the same
international cuisine most restaurant menus offered. Honolulu hotel
resorts imported 95% of all foodstuffs from the mainland and featured
what chef Mavrothalassitis calls, “ceasar salad and chardonnay”
blandness. Yet in predominately Asian ethnic neighborhoods small
restaurants were serving food with vibrant flavors. Their owners and
cooks were buying from local farmers and fishermen.
For fine dining restaurants, what was farmed locally was limited, so
George Mavrothalassitis, along with eleven fellow chefs, founded
the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement in 1991 to encourage local
farmers to diversify crops because the chefs would create the market
for their products. That if you build it they will come philosophy
continues to succeed for all concerned. The HRC’s Hawaii Culinary
Education Foundation and the Kamehameha Schools Hawaiian culture
and farmer programs share similar visions.
Hawaii, not Hawaiian, is an essential word choice. Traditional Hawaiian
dishes are distinct from the many brought i