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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 11:00 a.m., Monday, January 19, 2009

Island foods getting a boost from Obama

Advertiser Staff

"You voted for Obama.

You embraced change for Obama.

Now eat like Obama."

As the nation prepares for the inauguration of Barack Obama, the nation's press digs ever deeper for all stories Obama.

Two Mainland papers' food sections recently produced articles that offered recipes for the food Obama grew up with: Spam musubi, loco moco, chicken katsu curry and hurricane popcorn.

Cheryl Truman of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, who wrote the first three sentences of this posting, gets her information from Nash Werner, a Lexington-based photographer who was born on Oahu.

Werner is the source of the recipes for katsu curry and furikake popcorn and even offers an I-speak-local translation of "so ono, going broke da mout." For Mainlanders, that's "so delicious, it's going to knock you out."

"These aren't traditional Hawaiian food recipes," Werner says. "They're local-style fusion. Very popular in Honolulu and my hometown of Pearl City."

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune offers a menu for an inauguration party at home..

"Obama! O party!' he writes. "Whether you decide to toot for the next president over the weekend or on Inauguration Day, dust off the chafing dishes, unwrap the paper plates and freeze up plenty of ice. It's going to be a historic blowout.

"How you want to celebrate is up to you, but consider using Barack Obama's life and familial roots as a theme for food and drink. He's a South Sider from Chicago, true. But don't stop with an Old Style and a Chicago-style hot dog with all the trimmings.

"Given that he was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, schooled in Los Angeles, New York City and Cambridge, Mass., lives now in Chicago and has ties to Kansas and Kenya, you have a lot of cuisines and cultures to play with."

Daley's menu includes lemon grass chicken satay, irio (a mashed bean, plantain and corn dish from Kenya, where Obama's father was born) and chili (in a nod to the small-town chili houses of his mother's Kansas).

Naturally, topping the list is Spam musubi.

"We (in Hawai) serve more Spam per capita than anywhere else in the world," Daley quotes Ivan Lee, whose family owns Aloha Eats in Chicago.

"In Hawaii (musubi) is ubiquitous," Lee says. "You can get it at any 7-Eleven."