Hawaiian Saimin Recipe and History, Whats Cooking America (2024)

FAQs

What is the history of saimin in Hawaii? ›

Being popular on the Hawaiian Islands for more than 100 years, it started in the early 20th century among immigrant Asian laborers on sugar plantations. To this day, saimin can be frequently consumed in small noodle shops, or found in home cooking.

While ramen is a favorite dish on the continental U.S. thanks to modern chefs such as David Chang, saimin remains Hawai'i's go-to noodle soup. The word “saimin” is thought to be Cantonese (supposedly sai meaning thin and min meaning noodles).

Saimin and ramen broths are not alike. Ramen broth is usually made with fatty pork, so it's heavier and richer on the tongue than a saimin broth, which is light and sippable. Saimin broth is traditionally made with dashi, a combination of powdered kombu (dried sea kelp) and flaked dried bonito (a tuna).

The name saimin is the combination of two Chinese words: sai, meaning thin and min, which means noodle. It's believed that the dish originated during the early twentieth century plantation era as various Asian ethnicities – Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian and Portuguese — came together.

Ramen is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodle soups. It is first recorded to have appeared in Yokohama Chinatown in the early 20th century. Although ramen takes its name from lāmiàn, it did not originate from the hand-pulled lamian noodles of northern China, since the noodles used in ramen are cut, not pulled.

The word “saimin” is a combination of two Chinese words—sai meaning thin and min, which means noodle. The dish dates back to the plantation era in Hawaiʻi—late 1800s—when workers from various ethnic camps would gather to eat, bringing with them various ingredients to share.

Shi shi. Definition: Pee, to urinate. How to use it in a sentence: Please shishi in the lua (bathroom), and not in the ocean — coral bleaching is real.

It is certain that saimin, along with much of the contemporary cuisine in Hawaii, is closely related to the immigration of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Portuguese field workers during the plantation era of Hawaii beginning in the 1850s.

In Hawaii, pink or red-skinned kamaboko is readily available in grocery stores. It is a staple of saimin, a popular noodle soup created in Hawaii from the blending of Chinese and Japanese ingredients. Kamaboko is sometimes referred to as fish cake in English.

Saimin is another Hawaiian plantation era recipe that is a literal melting pot of cultures; a bowl of noodles that sums up Hawaii's ethnic history.

What is the rarest type of ramen? ›

I tried Japan's rarest ramen flavor. It's called the Ice Ramen, and its ingredients are so insane. that only brave people are able to eat it, because you can only get it at the Ice Ramen restaurant, which is completely made of ice.

Before it was commonplace to eat ramen at a restaurant, Americans associated the dish to instant noodles. This widespread perception can be traced back to the debut of Nissin Foods' Cup Noodle into the U.S. market in 1973.

In his book The Untold Story of Ramen, ramen historian George Solt dates the birth of ramen to the establishment of the restaurant Rai-Rai Ken in Tokyo in 1910. The restaurant employed Chinese cooks and popularized a dish called shina soba — which translates to Chinese noodles and is similar to today's ramen.

Saimin, pronounced like the name Simon, or sigh-man, traditionally gets made with long and curly wheat-egg noodles and a dashi broth that's often cooked with kombu and dried shrimp.

Saimin was born from the so-called “mix plate” culture of Hawaii's sugar plantations in the late-nineteenth century and draws influence from Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Portuguese and Filipino cuisine.

“Malama 'Aina” is a Hawaiian phrase that means caring for and honoring the land. This deceptively simple yet endangered practice is at the core of indigenous Hawaiian culture and guides the current Hawaiian sovereignty politics in Hawai'i.

The ahupuaʻa consists of Kalihi Uka, Kalihi Waena, and Kalihi Kai. Historically, Kalihi Kai was the site of the former Leprosy Receiving Station, where those suspected of leprosy were examined prior to treatment or being sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokaʻi.

Waialua was one of the six original districts of ancient Hawaii on the island, known as moku. Waialua is a former (sugar) mill town and residential area, quite different in its quiet ambiance from nearby Haleʻiwa, which is more commercial and tourist oriented.