Girls and grub

LIHUE — The Kauai Museum’s monthly Ohana Day program is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

During the event, the museum will show off its hinamatsuri display donated by Arnette J. Lee.

Chris Faye, museum’s curator, said the display is about 60 years old and was given to Lee by her grandparents because she was the eldest girl in the family.

“She used to have it on display at the Hanapepe Public Library so everyone could enjoy and learn about the custom,” Faye said. “In 2013, she donated the set to the Kauai Museum collection.”

Japanese immigrants brought to Hawaii to labor on the plantations also brought the ancient custom of Girls Day, traditionally called hinamatsuri, on the third day of the third month, or March 3.

Girls Day is a day to pray for a family’s young girls’ growth and happiness.

The original belief behind hinamatsuri is the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. Hina dolls were made of straw and set afloat on a boat down a river to sea, symbolically taking troubles, or bad spirits, away.

The museum invites people to learn more about hinamatsuri during its monthly Ohana Day program.

Another feature at Saturday’s event will be a book-signing for “Kau Kau to Cuisine: An Island Cookbook, Then and Now.” The culinary guide was written by food historian Arnold Hiura.

“The buzzwords of modern cuisine — sustainable, homegrown, foraged — are in fact age-old practices; many old-timers never stopped sourcing, cooking and eating their foods in these ways,” said Hiura.

The book contains 30 pairs of then and now recipes.

Some examples are grilled opihi become re-imagined as baked oysters with truffle Hollandaise, kabocha with dried ebi evolves into roasted kabocha risotto, and Portuguese sausage-hamburger patty loco moco is recreated as Sake-soy-braised short rib loco moco.