Hawaiian

What it is

Hawaiian cuisine begins with the foods Polynesian voyagers brought to the islands — taro, breadfruit, pigs, coconut — and evolved into a multicultural plantation cuisine when sugarcane workers from Japan, China, Portugal, Korea, and the Philippines arrived in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today’s “local food” is a blend, distinct from both traditional kanaka maoli cooking and mainland American food.

How it tastes

Soy sauce, sea salt, and pork fat run through most plates. Sweetness — pineapple, sugar — balances soy depth; raw fish in poke shows the Japanese influence; Filipino adobo and Portuguese sweet bread fill out the regional pantry.

Signature dishes & techniques

Kalua pig — whole pig wrapped in ti leaves and roasted in an imu underground pit — is the lūʻau centerpiece. Poke (raw cubed ahi with soy, onion, and limu seaweed) became a global plate in the 2010s. The “plate lunch” — two scoops of white rice, macaroni salad, and a protein — is the everyday everyman meal; loco moco and Spam musubi are its handheld cousins.