Hawai’i’s legacy of sustainable and delicious seafood
Hawai’i people love to eat. The rich food heritage of migrant plantation workers has resulted in an eclectic fusion of local staples. You’ll find Chinese bao stuffed with pork char siu, Filipino pork adobo, Japanese katsu, Hawaiian squid luau and Portuguese sausage rounded off with kim chi and of course rice, sometimes all on one plate.
But what they love most is seafood.
This string of islands, the most remote in the world, is surrounded by the vast Pacific. As with all island people, there is a deep cultural connection to the ocean. Ancient Hawaiians, like their modern-day counterparts, fished extensively and began farming fish some 800 years ago. Prior to western contact there were almost 500 loko iʻa, natural ponds, some that grew taro and fish, and seawall enclosed structures where freshwater streams meet the ocean.
Fishponds were part of an integrated food production and land stewardship system comprised of divisions called ahupua’a that extended from the mountain tops to the sea. These all but disappeared by the turn of the century, but today there are 40 traditional fishponds under reconstruction, through community involvement and scientific input. The Moliʻi Pond, part of Kualoa Ranch on Oahu, one of the most developed, grows oysters in floating cages.
Islanders consume almost twice the amount of seafood as compared to other Americans and expect only the highest quality. Everyone is a fish connoisseur! There are 250 Japanese restaurants serving sashimi, sushi and fish-based cuisine in Honolulu alone. Among these are high end establishments by celebrity chefs such as Nobu Matsuhisa and Masaharu Morimoto, to third or fourth generation mom-and-pop restaurants.
But you can find seafood featured strongly on the menu in every neighbourhood eating place throughout the islands, sold in shrimp trucks at the side of the road, even live in Chinatown’s markets, and on every dinner plate at home. Stop by any supermarket and you’ll find a poke counter boasting an array of cubed raw ahi tuna, crab, squid, octopus and salmon, prepared in an assortment of ways, and over steamed rice as a take-out lunch.
If you are lucky enough to be invited to someone’s home for New Year you’ll find the traditional sashimi in abundance, and if you’re very lucky someone might have brought a bag of ‘opihi. ‘Opihi, Hawai’i’s endemic black-foot limpet Cellana exarata, cling tenaciously to rocks on wave-pounded shorelines and are not called the fish of death for nothing. People literally risk life and limb for them: ‘Opihi picking is one of the top causes of drowning in the islands.
So where does all this seafood come from?
To meet demand for variety as well as quantity, the state imports more than 60%. However, according to the University of Hawaii, if we add the estimate of recreational fishing to commercial sources, the percentage of local seafood is pushed up to 51%. Aquaculture is limited, notably to land based tilapia and fresh water and marine shrimp and Hawaiian kanpachi Seriola rivoliana, grown in open-ocean submersible sea pens. Most local seafood comes from commercial long-line fisheries.
Hawaii’s long-line fishing fleet continues the heritage of sustainability, responsibility and care. It is one of the most intensively studied, monitored and best managed fisheries in the world with a score of 94% compliance with the FAO Code of Conduct. To maintain the premium quality demanded, no nets are used to harvest. The boats unload directly at the Honolulu Fish Auction, which has the distinction of being the only fresh tuna auction of its kind in the United States. Locally caught fish include tunas (bigeye, yellowfin, albacore and skipjack), billfish (blue marlin, striped marlin, shortbill spearfish and broad bill swordfish), as well as mahimahi, wahoo, moonfish, and sickle pomfret and bottomfish (long-tail red snapper, pink snapper, blue-green snapper and sea bass).
The quality of Hawai’i seafood is recognized beyond the islands. Locally caught tuna are supplied to the best Las Vegas hotels and almost all Moonfish sold in the U.S. are from Hawai’i. But to experience Hawaiian seafood at its best, you need to try poke the way it’s meant to be, with ogo seaweed and inamona, roasted and ground kukui nut, or buy garlic shrimp from a North Shore food truck and enjoy it on the beach. Or best of all, at a backyard get together, where everyone is a chef.