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Seventy-five years ago, the green turtle was seafood. Now it is sea friend, no longer subject to command appearances in the soup tureen.
By Betty Shimabukuro
bshimabukuro@starbulletin.comThat is just one of many challenges facing the chefs of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel as they plan a birthday dinner for a Pink Lady turning 75.
Their mission is to recreate the flavors and the spirit, if not the exact dishes, of the opening-night feast served to 1,200 guests on Feb. 1, 1927.
How times have changed: Tickets to that dinner cost $10. Tickets to the 2002 event, a benefit for the Honolulu Academy of Arts -- which is also turning 75 -- are $200.
And as for the menu, right there at the top was Green Sea Turtle Soup Kamehameha.
Alfred Cabacungan, the hotel's executive sous chef, says turtle soup traditionally consisted of a stock made from a cow's head and meat from the turtle.
For the anniversary dinner, it will be mock turtle soup, with oxtails standing in for the cow's head (the other end of the beast, so to speak) and pheasant meat for the turtle. The taste, Cabacungan says, is not quite the same, but close. "The richness from the oxtail replaces the richness from the cow's head."
He says he could have made the broth the traditional way, but that it may not have come across as very appetizing.
Such are the challenges of reconstructing a meal from several generations back. It's more a case of reinventing.
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Problem No. 1: Cabacungan has been unable to locate an original menu from that night. This is when knowing a pack rat would be handy -- specifically a 90-something-year-old pack rat who would have moved in such high-society circles.The hotel itself did not preserve a copy. The Bishop Museum, the State Archives, independent dealers -- Cabacungan tried them all. No luck. The closest he got was a menu put up for auction on the Big Island -- but he was two months too late to make a bid.
So he has relied instead on news accounts from the Star-Bulletin of the time to assemble a list of 10 "real European, old-fashioned, classical" courses, from appetizer platter to Gourmandise and Moka (dessert and coffee).
The menu presents a slice of culinary history, a snapshot of the fine-dining scene in those early days of Waikiki.
Turtles, to begin with, were abundant, and were a favorite at Iolani Palace. Mullet and squab, both also on the menu, were likely homegrown, says DeSoto Brown, an author and history buff who is particularly interested in the early days of Hawaii tourism.
The ancient fishponds were still producing, "although they were declining," he says, and many families raised squab at home.
The Ala Wai was new and clean then, but the fish were small and Brown doubts fresh mullet for 1,200 would've come from there. "It's not like you could run to the Ala Wai and run back with a flapping fresh fish to serve the guests."
Beef (there's that cow's head again) could have come from the Big Island, Maui or Oahu, Brown says. The same source could have provided sweetbreads (the thymus gland of a calf), served as Medallion of Sweet Breads Wilhelmina.
Imported foods reached Hawaii via a five-day steamship journey from the West Coast, a short enough trip to allow for bringing in the celery hearts, artichokes and foie gras that filled out the menu.
Upscale dining was certainly no foreign concept to these fish-and-poi islands, Brown says. "Even King Kalakaua had some pretty swanky meals in the 1880s."
Brown has several restaurant menus from the 1920s, including one from the first anniversary of the Royal (he doesn't have that elusive grand-opening menu, though). "The dishes all have some pretty high-falutin' names and it's hard to figure out what they mean."
Yes, sous chef Jerry Siu can speak to that. He was the one who combed reference books on classical European cooking to figure out what was behind the fancy titles of all the dishes.
Take Course No. 7: Squab-Chicken Mascotte. Mascotte, Siu found, is a poultry dish that incorporates artichoke bottoms tossed in butter, with cocotte potatoes and truffles. OK, fine, but what's "cocotte?" That means to form in chateau shapes, but smaller. And "chateau?" A football-shaped potato, roasted in butter.
Multiply that effort by the 10 dishes on the menu. "For us it's like learning a second language," Cabacungan says.
The 2002 menu won't be a mirror image of its predecessor. Cabacungan says it had to be condensed to five courses for the sake of practicality, and some dishes were "converted to our own style," because he just didn't think they'd be palatable to modern diners.
The sweetbreads, for example, instead of standing alone, will be served with a beef filet, along with roasted potato slices (never mind those chateaus).
The grand party itself was planned by Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, in her day the hostess-with-the-mostest. "Whenever she did anything, she did it up royally," says writer Maili Yardley, who grew up next door to the princess on Pensacola Street and remembers parties thrown for the Duke of Windsor and the king and queen of Siam.
Kawananakoa was actually the first registered guest at the hotel. She directed a pageant depicting the arrival of King Kamehameha the Great to Oahu. Fifteen canoes filled with warriors and kahili bearers landed on the beach outside the Royal, to be greeted by five princesses. Dances and chants were performed for the "king."
The princess of Oahu, by the way, was Gladys Brandt, longtime educator and now a trustee with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Yardley was 11 at the time, too young to go, but her parents attended and she remembers the night clearly as the ultimate in social events. Her mother wore a knee-length yellow chiffon with a scalloped hem "and beads all over it."
"My mother got all dolled up, my father was in a tuxedo, and off they went," Yardley recalls. "It was so exciting."
THIS SOUP, to be served at the gala dinner, is really a rich oxtail soup. At the party it will be served with quenelles, or meatballs, made of pheasant.
Brown onion in butter and oil; add oxtails and brown slightly. Add spices and herbs. Add flour and stir while bringing mixture to a boil. Add stock and bring to a boil again. Add remaining ingredients, except pastry, egg and garnishes. Simmer 2 hours.Mock Turtle Soup Encroute
1 onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds oxtails
1 garlic clove, chopped
3 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon flour
6 cups veal or chicken stock
1 cup seeded, peeled and chopped tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
8 7-inch round pieces of puff pastry, uncooked
1 egg, beaten
>> Garnish:
1 tablespoon chervil sprigs
1/4 cup wild mushrooms, sautéed
8 quail eggs, hard-boiled and halvedTaste and adjust seasonings. Remove oxtails. When cool enough to handle, remove and shred meat; discard bones.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Ladle a 6-ounce portion of soup into each of 8 soup cups. Divide garnishes among the 8 cups. Cover each cup with puff pastry dough and brush tops with egg. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving (not including salt to taste): 400 calories, 27 g total fat, 7 g saturated fat, 120 mg cholesterol, 890 mg sodium, 25 g carbohydrate, 13 g protein.*
A dinner celebrating the 75th birthday of the hotel and the Honolulu Academy of Arts: Birthday celebration
Dinner time: 6 p.m. Feb. 1
Place: Monarch Room, Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Cost: $200, benefitting the art academy
Attire: Black tie or roaring '20s
Call: 532-6099
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