Big Island Man Publishes Book on

Arnold Hiura has an adventurous palate. He’d rather eat the head of a fish than the fillet. He enjoys snails and sea slugs. And he’s especially fond of dinuguang, a stew made from the blood and innards of a pig.

His eclectic appetites developed when he was a child in Hawaii, living and working on a Big Island sugar plantation. That experience led to a new book, “Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands,” which will have its Bay Area premiere this weekend with lectures and signings by Hiura in San Jose and San Francisco.

“It started from conversations with friends I grew up with on the Big Island,” recalled the 59-year-old author. “People our age in Honolulu would always say we were a generation older than them because of our rural upbringing and plantation background. We were reflecting on how much things had changed.”

The friends decided it was important “to put all this stuff down.” The task fell to Hiura. Over the next three years, the book expanded well beyond a plantation focus: It traces the history of the islands through a culinary lens.

“Arnold has a passion about wanting to share Hawaii with whoever wants to learn,” said Daryl Higashi, president of the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce of Northern California Foundation. “When you read his book, it’s mind-boggling.”

It’s all there: The baking techniques of missionary wives and the eating proclivities of the Hawaiian cowboy, or paniolo. Loco moco, malasadas, oxtail soup and Zippy’s drive-in (a favorite of President Obama). How to order shave ice without making a fool of yourself. Why Spam still engenders such devotion.

Higashi, who moved from Oahu to San Francisco in 1985, estimated the Bay Area is home to more than 80,000 Hawaii expatriates of all races and ethnicities. And census data from 2008 found that California has 282,000 Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders – more than any other state, including Hawaii.

“People in Hawaii like to come together,” Higashi said. “That’s one of the messages Arnold is trying to put out. When they move away from Hawaii, there’s still this innate sense that you want to be part of a group. You share what you have – and food is a way people express that.”

Early on, Hiura figured that out, working summers in the fields of the sugar plantation near Hilo where he grew up.

“When the whistle blew, everyone would squat or sit and you’d share your lunch,” he said. “There was also a social protocol. If you don’t take from someone’s offering, they won’t take from yours. If what they brought didn’t look all that appealing, you still had to do it. You’d be amazed at what came out of those bags – and there was no refrigeration either. But maintaining the relationship was more important than what you put in your mouth.”

In the book, Hiura insists he’s “just another guy on the street” rather than a culinary expert. His interest in food, however, is nothing new. In 1987, when he was editor of the Hawaii Herald, he and a staff writer spent almost a year, and gained 20 pounds apiece, investigating the origins of the plate lunch – an island classic with its two scoops of white rice, macaroni salad and entree.

His account in “Kau Kau,” which hit bookshelves in Hawaii earlier this year, concluded that the first plate lunch was probably served at Honolulu Harbor in the late 1920s or early 1930s. That kind of detail has resonated with readers.

“The reaction has been beyond all my expectations,” Hiura said by phone last week. “People are responding most powerfully to the nostalgia and to losing touch with the old ways. They’ve seen Hawaii change so dramatically in such a short time. They enjoy reconnecting to the past through food.”

Over coffee at a Honolulu cafe, Hiura said he’s always had a deep interest in local history and local literature – but there is still a vast amount to learn. Even the word “kau kau,” which he’d assumed was Hawaiian for “food” or “to eat,” was probably local pidgin English derived from “chow chow,” Chinese for food.

“Hawaii has always had outside influences, going all the way back to the early Polynesians and whalers and traders and ethnic immigrants,” he said. “I really enjoy the variety more than a lot of people. There’s almost nothing I won’t try.”

During his Bay Area visit, Hiura hopes to attend this weekend’s San Francisco Aloha Festival in the Presidio. In mid-August, he’ll appear at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where he used to be a curator. He’ll also spend time with Hawaii expatriates, such as Higashi, who share a bond that will never go away: food.

Higashi, supportive housing finance director for San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, returned last month from his annual visit to Hawaii. There are always foods he must have when he goes to Oahu: malasadas (Portuguese doughnuts) at Leonard’s Bakery, shave ice at Matsumoto, and the roast pork plate lunch at Rainbow Drive-In.

Higashi said reading “Kau Kau” helped him make sense of why the islands exert such a pull on those who’ve left.

“Arnold was able to weave the history of Hawaii with how food evolved,” he said.

“Kau Kau” contains more than 70 recipes and a primer of 100 food terms. It looks at what people eat and the reasons they eat it, which have historically been tied to Hawaii’s isolation, poverty, the need for food preservation and its extraordinary diversity – thanks to waves of Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino, Korean and Puerto Rican immigrants drawn to the plantations and later joined by new arrivals from elsewhere.

“What the book is trying to do is to get people to think about themselves and what role food plays not only in their personal lives but in their relationships, too,” Hiura said.