KOLOA — Standing atop a wooden box in a bright red apron, Espy Garcia addressed an attentive crowd of people who came to taste some of her famous cooking, taught to her during her childhood at Koloa plantation. The cheerful
KOLOA — Standing atop a wooden box in a bright red apron, Espy Garcia addressed an attentive crowd of people who came to taste some of her famous cooking, taught to her during her childhood at Koloa plantation.
The cheerful chef has been showing off her culinary skills while telling stories about the “old days” for the past 14 years at the annual festival. Through family history and personal memories, Espy gave the crowd not only a taste of her eclectic local food, but a glimpse of a young girl’s life in Koloa during the sugar era.
Barely topping the giant wok heating with oil, Espy warmed the audience with her sprite-like humor and kind words.
“If you eat my food, you are family,” she said. “Camp life taught us that food was for sharing and giving, the community shared their culture through their food.”
Espy explained that while workers were segregated by ethnicity, “the separation at that time was actually something very helpful because it preserved many of the traditions that the people were bringing to Kaua‘i” from their homelands.
Espy’s family followed her father to Kaua‘i from Manila, after he had worked on the plantation for two years without his wife or children. In 1928 Espy’s mother came to the island “after having lost four of her six children while my father was away. My mother was so heartbroken they say she went to the river to drown herself. I always told her, I was so happy that her friends saved her that day, so that she could move to Kaua‘i and later give birth to me and my other brothers and sisters. I am the youngest of 10.”
Throwing a bag full of chopped white cabbage into the hot wok, Espy lightly tossed the vegetables and fluidly continued her story.
“Camp life was so wonderful, we played games, learned to catch fish and raise goats.” But it was also during her young years in the camp that she learned to cook from her mother. “The first thing she taught was safety — I remember her telling me knives were sharp and pots were hot and to always be careful. And she also taught me a very important lesson: ‘If it smells good, it will taste good.’”
Using her sense of smell as a child was only the beginning of what has become Espy’s main cooking perspective. “I use all five senses to cook — and that’s what makes it good!”
Turning down the heat and adding corn beef to her cabbage, the sizzle of the oil and cabbage makes her exclaim, “Doesn’t it sound good?”
Espy explained that she learned to “hear” if a recipe was finished. “Making potato salad you hear that squish-squish of the mayonnaise, I can hear when it’s just right. And using your hands to mix things, you get to know the texture of things … and of course you use your eyes to see, your nose to smell, and then you get to taste!”
Espy overflows with Aloha spirit, which is disarming but also gives the audience the feeling they’ve just heard a true culinary secret.
For the demonstration, Espy served some of the real everyday foods one might find on a plantation. Exemplifying the cultural melange that created Kaua‘i’s rainbow of diversity, Espy prepared white rice, Japanese takowan, Korean kimchee, fried Spam, Van Camps pork and beans with Vienna sausage, sardines and onions and the Filipino dish of sautéed marungi.
For desSert Espy demonstrates “ice cake” made from Carnation evaporated and condensed milk with syrup flavoring.
“We used to pour the mixture into ice cube trays and have a icy sweet snack to cool us down when we were kids. Today I’ve put them in individual cups and all you have to do is warm the sides up like this,” she said as she rolled the cup between her hands — “If yours doesn’t melt you’re a cold hearted person,” she joked — “and then just slip it out like this.” The light pink ice cake looked like a creamy push-pop, perfect for the hot afternoon.
“As we grew up, my mom planted vegetables along the ditches of the sugar fields. We shared from our yard and others shared what they had,” she said.
Espy shared her stories with a nostalgic joy of the simple but hardwork so many remember of those times. “The Chinese brought the rice, the Portuguese brought the furno, a bread baking fire … it was an awesome place to live.”
Espy took to the kitchen at an early age and learned every dish from helping her mother. She also was taught to slaughter the chickens: “You pull back the feathers on the left side of their neck, to expose the vein, and then cut. OOH. I hated that part … I really love animals and it was difficult, but my mother made me learn,” she said.
Later her cooking became the love potion for her husband of more than 50 years — “He always says, ‘God made the stomach and heart close together so that if you make this one happy,” she points to her stomach, “you keep this one happy too,’” pointing to her heart. “And it must be true because we’ve been married all this time.”
“Ready to eat?” she said to the audience. After saying a prayer, being thankful for the people gathered and delicious food, Espy unveiled the buffet and the line quickly extended to the street. Standing behind one of her dishes, she greeted every person with a smile — giving them a true taste of old Koloa.
• Keya Keita, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681 ext.257 or kkeita@kauaipubco.com.
