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Eating Healthy in the Old Days, at Uncle Ken's Corner Table
Aloha everyone!
11/2/08 - As I was browsing up and down the aisles of the local Super Market the other day, I was thinking of the old days, growing up in Hilo, before the advent of huge supermarkets. In those days, if our family wanted fish, we went to Suisan or Kimura Fish Market where you could get really fresh fish. Some days, when we went to the market, the akule or opelu were still alive when you bought them, and their movements made a "rat-a-tat" sound in the pink paper wrapping, all the way home.
When we wanted meat, we went to Standard Meat Market. And there, you could ask for the cut of beef or pork you wanted, and they would slice it for you exactly the way you wanted it. I especially loved it when my folks bought a piece of Pork Butt (shoulder pork) to roast, and they asked the butcher to leave the skin on. The skin was my favorite part of the roast pork, all puffy and bubbly from the heat, and so golden brown, crispy and garlicky when heated just right. And pork was more juicy and "fall off the bone tender" in those days because of all the fat and marbling. Less healthful, of course, but oh so yummy. I can't find pork roast with the skin on anymore in the modern supermarkets.
Pork Chops were my favorite meat. In those days they were so nice and tender from all of the marbling. If they were from "local" pork, you had to make sure you cooked the pork thoroughly just in case the pork harbored little parasites that we were all afraid to ingest. Our parents continually warned us to eat only well done pork or the consequences would be dire, and you would get trichinosis. To this day, I'm still a little queasy when a restaurant asks me whether I want my pork rare or medium. I still get mine "well done", often to the disdain of the waiters, who will warn me that modern well-done pork is going to be dry.
In the olden days in Hilo, folks who raised pigs or hogs, fed them table scraps or "slop" as we used to call it, collected from homes in the community. At our home, the "Slop Man" would come twice a week to pick up our table scraps, fruit peels, meat trimmings and food waste which we scraped after every meal into a metal bucket. The Slop Man took our pail of slop, and left an empty one for us to use till the next pick up day. He fed the community table scraps to his pigs, which were then sold at markets in town.
Although they heated the slop at the piggery, we were told that the slop often bred parasites, which made their way into the flesh of the pigs or hogs, and into our bodies if we didn't cook the pork really well. But this was "recycling" in its earliest form. Nothing went to waste. Today's hogs are fed a controlled diet which is mainly corn, so the threat of parasites in the pork is practically nil. But I'm still careful about cooking my pork. Old habits die hard.
At the meat market, you usually bought your chicken whole, not cut up into pieces, and certainly not only drumsticks or breasts or thighs or wings. And depending on what you were going to do with the chicken, you asked for a small fryer (young and tender), a roaster (full bodied) or a stewing chicken (old and tough, but much cheaper). The stewing chicken was usually an older hen whose egg-laying days were almost over, and so the best way to cook such tough birds was in a stew, chicken soup, pot pie or other long, moist cooking method. And inside the chicken's cavity, the butcher gave you the neck, gizzard and liver which you used for stuffing or soup. At some markets today, you can still buy whole chickens like the old days, but most folks opt for the convenience of pre-cut chicken pieces.
As a youngster, I was never a big fan of steak for dinner, much to the chagrin of my parents who thought of steak as a "special" meal. As I toyed with my steak, they would go through a list of all of the kids of the neighborhood and the world who would love to have that steak for their dinner. Now that I look at my experience, I believe that I didn't like steak because we used to purchase a cheaper cut of steak, which usually ended up pretty chewy and tough. Too tough for my little teeth and jaw. Today, I love my steaks, especially a nice aged, tender Rib-Eye, my favorite cut.
But getting back to my dislike of steak as a youngster, I once told my mom and dad, "If those other kids would love this steak so much, why don't we send this steak to China?" That was the end of dinner for me that night. In later years, my mom and day would chuckle about that comment, and admitted that they had a hard time maintaining a stern face after hearing my insolence. But I did not starve that night, as my mom sneaked a sandwich into my room after doing the dishes.
Vegetables, fruits and produce were sold in various stores, from large markets to the small mom and pop stores that conveniently dotted every community, camp and subdivision. There you could get canned goods, fresh vegetables and fruits and everyday convenience items.
We also had a "Yasai Man" or vegetable seller, who passed our house once a week in his truck, ringing his bell, like Santa's sleigh. He knew who his regular customers were, as he would slow down as he passed our homes, and, if we wanted something, we would run outside to flag him down. For his most regular customers, he would drive up their driveway, and yell "Yasai!" (Vegetables!) or ring his bell. Most of his produce consisted of vegetables and fruits from his own farm, cabbages and daikon, cucumbers and pumpkin, carrots and gobo, tomatoes and oranges, green onions and ginger. When he stopped his truck, a bunch of housewives on the block would come over to see what he had to offer that day. It was like the Farmer's Open Market coming straight to your house.
| Uncle Ken out picking sunflowers. Just joking - only being a tourist in Hokkaido! |  |
We also had the "Tofu Man" in his truck. He sold his home-made Tofu and Aburage from the back of his truck. (Aburage is deep-fried tofu slices, which get brown and puffed up and elastic when fried, and is most often seen as the pouch for Inari-zushi or cone sushi). You had to bring your own container or pot in which to place your tofu.
And if you also wanted the soybean fibrous residue (or kasu) called Okara, you just had to ask, and he would give you as much as you wanted for free. This, too, was scooped out into your own container. My mom would send me out to the street to hail the Tofu Man, and I would buy one Tofu for fifteen cents and some Aburage for a nickel apiece, and also would ask for the free Okara. I thought about this, as I saw Okara in the market today and it's no longer free. Okara is what's left of the soybean after the soymilk for making the Tofu is extracted from the beans. It is actually very high in fiber and nutrients, and can make a very healthful and tasty side dish.
Other items were also sold from door-to-door trucks, like charcoal in big burlap bags. The charcoal was made from trees harvested in the Big Island Forests, and heated in underground, sealed spaces until they turned to charcoal. We needed charcoal to heat the water in our Ofuro (our redwood tub where you soaked in hot water up to your neck), a predecessor to today's hot tubs. This was before the convenience of gas or electric water heaters.
My friend, Clint, tells me that in his neighborhood, they used wood to heat their water. It came from from downed trees that were gathered in the forests and delivered as large trunks. Those trunks had to be sawed into foot-long lengths, and then split with an axe. It was tough work, a chore for the boys. And on the sugar plantations, there was an ample supply of free Bagasse. Bagasse was the compressed dried sugar cane stalks. It was the waste product after the sugar had been extracted and came in big bales.
And milk and cream were also delivered in bottles by the Milk Man, who came around very early in the morning. You could hear the milk bottles clinking like little bells, as the milk man delivered the milk to your doorstep before 5:00 a.m., and took away the empty milk bottles to be washed and reused. When you heard the milkman, you knew you had about an hour more to sleep before you had to get up. The milk had to be delivered before breakfast, but not so early that it would get warm sitting on the doorsteps. It was my chore to go outside and get the milk, and put it in the refrigerator.
One of the most convenient ways to purchase our canned goods and dry foods in the olden days, was the "Chumontori" or house-to-house order taker who visited our home once or twice a week in the mornings on a set schedule. In our area, the Chumontori was from the K. Taniguchi Store (predecessor to today's KTA Super Stores on the Big Island). He would come to our house and stand with his order pad and pencil and write down whatever my mom ordered, from canned vegetables to ketchup, to rice or shoyu, or dried shrimp (ebi), or canned peaches, canned soup, canned tuna or salmon, Ume, coffee and even soap and toothpaste. And the items would be promptly delivered that afternoon. They let us "run a tab" which we paid monthly, just like a charge account.
And in those days, a lot of the local foods were made at home. And families always made a little extra to be able to share with friends, neighbors, relatives and co-workers. The very best Portuguese Sausage that I've ever tasted came regularly from Mrs. Carvalho, a teacher with my mom. I can still taste those perfectly seasoned sausages, with their chunks of pork and pork fat. And we also received loaves of Portuguese Sweet Bread (pćo duce), baked in outdoor ovens from our neighbor. The aroma of the baking bread wafted through the neighborhood long before the knock on the door: the neighbor boy with a loaf of freshly baked bread.
My mom's contribution to the sharing was usually home made cake with home made frosting, in the days before cake mixes made baking cakes an everyday affair. Licking the spoon and egg beaters of all of the remaining frosting was my favorite treat. And in those days, bake sales and fund raising for the kids were almost always done with home-made goods from breads and cookies, to jams and jellies, Portuguese Sausage to lau laus. They were truly community efforts, and oh, so tasty.
Although I have lots of fond, nostalgic memories of the old days, of talking directly with the butcher and fish monger, and with the house-to-house delivery of home-grown or home-made products, I relish today's convenience of the Super Market, where you can get everything you want with one stop.
Today, when you visit a market like the new Whole Foods market at Kahala Mall, you get a glimpse of tomorrow's food shopping with pre-cooked and ready-to-cook foods and meals enticingly arrayed, ready for the busy twenty-first century man and woman. Healthful foods and convenience for your palate. I may occasionally wish for a return to the old days, but I believe that most of us enjoy the convenience of life as we have it today, and would not wish to return to yesterday permanently. Just an occasional stroll down memory lane suffices for most of us old-timers.
And those are my recollections and thoughts of shopping from The Corner Table.
Uncle Ken
