Island inspired: Food and Wine, Chef Alan Wong impress during culinary tour of Hawaii

KOHALA COAST — Growing up in Iowa, the land of the all-you-can-eat buffet and home to 4 million head of cattle, I never struggled to be well fed.

But as I learned Thursday night while attending an intimate, seaside dinner at The CanoeHouse at Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows — part of the Connoisseur’s Culinary Journey on the Big Island sponsored by the Hawaii Food and Wine Festival — there’s a substantial difference between being well fed and being fed well.

Now, that’s not to say the fare back home is without its charms. We barbecue with the best of them. Motorists must be as vigilant to avoid smashing into street-side sweet corn stands as they are dodging the droves of deer crossing rural highways. And my mother and grandmother could do a heck of a lot more in the kitchen that just boil an egg or flip a pancake.

However, after upgrading my surroundings only two months ago from an ocean of cornfields to a tropical paradise in the middle of the Pacific, I’ve been exposed to an array of cuisine almost as vast and unfamiliar as the deep blue sea that encircles me.

“Hey, we’re not just all about the songs, the surf, the beach and the sites,” world-renowned Chef Alan Wong laughed Thursday as we dined at the restaurant he credits as the springboard for his international culinary fame and subsequent fortune. “There’s a new cuisine here. There’s a cuisine that is part of modern Hawaii.”

I’ve spun rigatoni in Rome, dabbled in dim sum in San Francisco and tried taramasalata in Mykonos, but the culinary stylings on display Thursday evening came together to create one of the best meals I’ve ever been fortunate enough to enjoy.

Thursday was more than a mere meal, though. It was an experience — one meant to highlight farm-to-table, modern Hawaiian cuisine in all of its eclectic glory, and one extended from a day journeying about Hawaii Island to local produce centers that provide island chefs the raw materials they use to craft their culinary masterpieces.

The day began with a cruise up the Hamakua Coast to the Kaunamano Farm, where a group of six couples, a cluster of local and national media members, a handful of Food and Wine Festival organizers and Chef Wong met a litter of Berkshire piglets born just the night before.

Local pork provided by the farm was used to create the evening’s first course: braised and seared pork belly, dressed with pickled pipinola, pipinola shoots and hoisin vinaigrette so tender it all but melted in my mouth.

The next stop was Big Island Abalone at the Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park, an aquaculture facility unique to Hawaii Island that makes use of ocean thermal energy conversion technology by raising the abalone in cool seawater pumped from the depths of the ocean.

The abalone was the star of the night’s second course, accompanied by purple sweet potato gnocchi, turnip wagon farm’s tomatoes, hamakua alii mushrooms and watercress.

All I really knew about gnocchi is its track record of earning several aspiring “Top Chefs” a stern look from Padma Lakshmi followed by a swift kick out the door and a one-way ticket home. Even after enjoying it, I’m still not sure I could describe gnocchi accurately. But I can say definitively, it was sheer beauty on the plate.

The farm tour finished up at the Kaupulehu Interpretive Center at Kalaemano, where guests learned about salt harvesting in ancient Hawaiian salt ponds. The third course at The CanoeHouse featured cattle two ways — kare kare short ribs, keawe smoked ribeye and garlic sticky rice suman.

Chef Wong procured a bag of the harvested sea salt, which he passed around the table for guests to sprinkle atop the smoked ribeye — a dish that transported me back home to the Midwest more than any other that evening.

Luckily for Wong, it didn’t transport him to an interrogation room at Kona International Airport when he boarded a flight back to Honolulu a few hours later, mistaken by airport security for a substance of a far more nefarious nature.

It’s a misunderstanding Wong jokingly said may have occurred on one or two prior occasions.

The meal wrapped with dessert — a house-churned, brown butter ice cream complete with caramel, furikake, popcorn, arare and smoked sea salt, which was also harvested from the ancient salt ponds.

Every dish was, of course, accompanied by a wine pairing elevating each flavor profile to its ultimate level.

The Connoisseur’s Culinary Journey and subsequent dinner served as a preamble to the sixth annual Hawaii Food and Wine Festival, which will be held across three islands between Oct. 14-30 and will feature several well-known chefs such as Richard Blais and Hugh Acheson.

“We get these talents here, and it’s a showcase for the islands in that the real star is what’s grown here, what’s caught here, what’s ranged here.” Tannya Joaquin, director of marketing and public relations for the Hawaii Food and Wine Festival, explained. “Some of these chefs have huge followings from other parts of the world, and suddenly, they go back and become ambassadors for us.”

A blazing orange sun sank slowly into the ocean beyond Mauna Lani beach as I sipped wine at Chef Wong’s table. He made sure my gaze remained vigilantly fixed on the sunset to capture the famously fickle green flash, which accompanies the last vestige of the day’s light when it pleases.

It’s a sight Wong witnessed many times as he helped to redefine the modern cuisine of Hawaii during the 1990s from The CanoeHouse kitchen.

Now nearing 60 and in the sunset of his career, Wong is cognizant of his own green flash inching ever closer.

It’s why he took part in Food and Wine’s culinary journey across Hawaii Island, and why he’s helped raise more than $1 million to support local culinary pursuits over the previous five years. Wong’s message to the new wave of chefs and farmers in Hawaii has been unwavering.

“The whole purpose … is that the next generation of kids will grow up believing that anything is possible,” Wong said. “That ketchup does not have to be red. Nothing has to be what it is.”

Thursday evening has inspired me to immerse myself in modern Hawaiian cuisine in all its facets and intricacies, and helped me realize that food doesn’t have to be for me what it’s always been.

I must admit, a little part of me is going to miss gobbling pork and beans out of a chafing dish with a serving spoon like a ravenous animal. But if the meal at The CanoeHouse is at all par for the course where Hawaiian cuisine is concerned, I doubt I’m going to miss it too much.