Hawaii’s Food Dictionary

Hawai‘i’s culinary terms can be baffling, whether supermarket shopping, looking for recipe ideas in local cookbooks, or reading restaurant menus, particularly at fine dining ones where chefs like to show off by using new and fancier food terminology.

While newcomers to the islands are at the most disadvantage, even longtime residents can get stumped by forgotten meanings of ingredients.

Being familiar with every culinary term or ingredient, particularly those not from one’s heritage/ethnicity, is impossible. Add in local pidgin and one can be excused for not knowing the meaning of many local culinary terms.

Hawai‘i’s Food Dictionary ends all the confusion and unknowns. No longer do you have to be in the dark about an ingredient’s meaning or a food term. No longer do you have to be stumped at the grocery store or intimidated at a restaurant when you hear the specials.

Culling over 40 local cookbooks, from The Choy of Seafood by Sam Choy, to A Taste of Hawaii by Jean-Marie Josselin, from D.K.’s Sushi Chronicles from Hawai‘i by Dave D.K. Kodama, to Roy’s Fish & Seafood by Roy Yamaguchi, Hawai‘i’s Food Dictionary is all inclusive to understand local culinary food usage including many relevant non-Hawaii meanings.