Spirit of Aloha | Features | July/August 2007

Paniolo Pa‘ina
By Sophia Schweitzer


Hungry and hard-working, Hawai‘i’s cowboys keep their food heritage alive

Rick, my husband, is a farrier. A farrier, or blacksmith, shoes horses. From Kohala to Ka‘u, he’s been shoeing horses on the Big Island for 30-some years; not just any horses, either, but the rugged, agile animals that our local cowboys ride. He knows the cowboy lifestyle well. It’s a way of living defined by earnest friendships and good cowboy food. So when I was asked to write about typical meals shared out in the pasture or on the ranch, I asked him to whom I should talk. “Uncle Wallace,” he said without hesitation. “The greatest paniolo cook.”

Although I’m a vegetarian, I’m no stranger to cowboy food. Knowing what a cowboy (or ranch farrier) eats is the juiciest path to understanding the men who love Hawai‘i’s rolling green lands far more than stuffy, four-star restaurants. I’ve seen chunks of salt beef, or loko, a dish made from pig intestines; pipikaula or dried beef; crisp-fried fish, and more. I find these dishes fascinating, earthy, honest. They replenish calories burn­ed and salt sweated out. They always make the best of resources available. Forget Beluga caviar. Here are local ingredients that are not so different from the days when John Palmer Parker established Hawai‘i’s famed ranching industry.

In 1812, almost 20 years after Capt. George Vancouver dropped off five cows and a bull as well-intentioned gifts for Kamehameha I, Parker, a New Englander, gained royal permission to shoot their offspring. On the Big Island, cattle had become a problem. They were thriving on Hawai‘i’s rich sedges; and they were running rampant, ruining forests and farmlands. Meanwhile, Parker had spotted a marketing niche—beef, tallow and hides for the trading ships, which he himself had abandoned around 1809.

Other local entrepreneurs joined Parker, but their efforts were not enough to reduce the cattle population, while the demand for beef products grew. From 1833 onward, these men were joined by intrepid vaqueros, cow handlers of Spanish ancestry, known for their saddle and roping skills, who be­came known as paniolo. Like Parker himself, they married Ha­waiian women and adopted Hawaiian traditions, but they also preserved their own legacy. Around their campfires at night they played the ‘ukulele, sang and laughed. They formed a self-sufficient lot; their culture was distinctly different from that of the sugar plantations that were also becoming prominent in Hawai‘i. Ethnic groups from the plantations joined them, drawn to the much freer paniolo life. Ever hungry, they cooked, creating foods of the Islands seasoned with paniolo recipes and techniques.

Parker founded Parker Ranch in 1847. It would grow to encompass 150,000 acres, the largest ranch in the Is­lands. Uncle Wallace worked for more than 25 years at Parker Ranch. He was the head cook at Humu‘ula Sheep Station on the slopes of Mauna Kea, elevation 6,000 feet, where each morning at 2 he would fire up the cabin stove so his gang could head out for work at 3. Uncle Wallace died in 2006. So Rick and I decided to talk story with Uncle’s nephew, Wally Ching, a strapping 44-year-old father of two boys, and a third-generation paniolo. With other family members, he runs the Ching Ranch, which hugs the North Kohala Coast and is home to about 250 head of cattle. Around our picnic table, we cooked up a feast of paniolo tales.

Breakfast? “First, coffee,” says Rick. “Coffee and crackers. The crackers came out of a can, and Wallace would yell, ‘Make sure you close good! Otherwise come soft.’”

Have you ever tasted them? Even I, a newcomer, remember them. They were Hawai‘i’s beloved Saloon Pilots—hard tack really—large, round, dry biscuits first introduced by sailors in the mid-1800s, but perfect for the paniolo, who needed foods that were slow to spoil. In plantation towns, small companies formed to supply these unleavened breads, as basic as the paniolo’s salted and pickled meats, and perfect when dunked in coffee or a can of condensed milk. Original Saloon Pilots are a memory now. The last factory, based in Hilo, closed down in 2003.

“Uncle taught us how to live with the land,” says Ching. “We hunted. Smoked pork became a big part of our meals. We raised taro, and so we always had laulau [taro leaves wrapped around meat, then steamed]. Uncle taught us how to fish: ‘opihi, throw net, diving. He used secret ingredients, and we watched. Fermented black bean paste, and pickled turnip.”

Ching works seven days a week, and yet, he says: “It’s all about food. To be a cowboy, you got to eat good, so you can ride that horse, and pound the ‘ō‘ō [a digging instrument], and work with those large animals.”

The paniolo’s culinary passion becomes a pièce de résistance during the branding, the annual or semiannual event when the animals are corralled, sorted and marked. It’s then that the paniolo sees why he worked so hard all year, when he can count his new calves and gauge the quality of his breed. Here’s the product he must sell to provide for his family. “We plan a week ahead,” says Ching. “Branding bonds us. My mother is the backbone. Even the keiki [children] learn the cowboy way. We invite our friends to help, and when they eat, they really eat. Because of the different ethnic backgrounds in our family—Chinese, Portuguese and Japa­nese—we mix it all up, though. Pūlehu [broiled] beef, mountain oysters spliced open on the fire. And, because we are close to the ocean, we always have fish. Prawns from the stream, steamed moi [threadfin], poke [diced fish with salt and seaweed], sashimi.”

“Traditionally, the paniolo spent days and sometimes weeks out in the fields. The ranches on which they worked and lived kept stores where they and their families shopped for daily staples and basic supplies. Salt beef was sold by the pound from a large vat, poi (a thick paste made from the taro corm) came in plastic bags—you snipped off a corner and sucked directly from the bag—canned goods, rice, jeans and wool shirts. The ranch killed cows once a week, and you were allotted a certain amount of fresh beef. Families grew their own vegetables and raised chickens for eggs. The men supplemented their food with fishing, or hunting pigs and goats. Some ranches, such as the 35,000-acre Haleakalā Ranch on Maui, maintained dairies, which distributed fresh milk.

Today, the dairy no longer operates. And the ranch store has been driven out of business by trucks that take the cowboys into town. The disappearance of such paniolo traditions only adds more heat to meals cooked for the branding crews.

“Last week we served tripe stew,” says Greg Friel, cattle operations manager at Haleakalā Ranch. “This is a dish made from the stomach lining of cattle. And then we ate pork sau­sage and cabbage fried in the wok.”

When Greg and I talk, it’s evening. He’s in the kitchen, frying hekka, a simple Japanese stir-fry that can be traced back to the heyday of sugar plantations. It relies on any poultry, meat or vegetables on hand, plus soy sauce, green onions and mirin. Friel’s branding crew includes the 20-some cowboys from Hale­akalā Ranch, as well as guys from Kaupō Ranch and ‘Ulu­palakua Ranch. Usually they gather at dawn at the ranch’s headquarters, just as mountain mists dissolve to reveal gorgeous views of sleepy Kahului and the northern coastline. They do not eat until pau hana, after all the work is done, no earlier than mid-afternoon. “Then it’s time to relax,” says Friel, who is in charge of more than 4,000 animals. Pau hana is when branding teams sit down to savor their hard-earned meals. They seal loyalties, risks shared, efforts completed, a pride for their accomplishments, including the ‘ono (delicious) food, and a deep appreciation for the land. They are ‘ohana, family. “We heal our bruises. We joke around. It’s like, no one got hurt, the job went well, we can talk story,” says Friel.

For day-to-day family meals, no paniolo menu is complete without something Portuguese. Bringing their wives and children, Portuguese immigrants first came to the Islands in the late 1800s from Madeira and the Azores to work on the sugar plantations. They preferred ranching instead and quickly added their own flavors to the paniolo’s cook pot: spicy Portuguese sausages, stuffed in home kitchens; bean soup, simmered for hours on a wood-burning stove; and, above all, pão doce, the fragrant sweetbread that the women baked once a week in a forno, a large, communal, domed stone oven that could spill out 80 or more loaves at a time. Kids would come running to sniff the aroma, and wouldn’t leave without a chunk of buttered, warm crust. ‘The knowledge is lost, though,” says Friel. “Haleakalā Ranch still has an oven onsite, but no one knows quite how to use it. The temperature in the oven is critical. But no­body knows what that temperature is.”

Today, Honoka‘a in Hāmākua on the Big Island is largely a Portuguese settlement. It’s also reputedly Hawai‘i’s most Western town. (In my opinion, that distinction is a toss-up between Honoka‘a, a rambling one-road hang where secondhand stores sell fabric and canned sardines, and Upcountry Makawao on Maui, where T. Komoda Store & Bakery has been selling its famed breakfast malassadas—traditional sugared deep-fried doughnuts—and luscious cream puffs to cowboys since 1916.) Honoka‘a celebrates the paniolo with Western Week each May, nine days of activities, including a parade and paniolo fashion show, dancing, block parties and a rough-riding rodeo. The most popular ac­tivity is eating, specifically the grilled local rib-eye steaks served on Friday at JJ’s Meat Market on Mamane Street.

“Western Week is our opportunity to give back to the community and to promote local ranchers and local grass-fed, chemical-free beef,” says Jill Mattos, general manager of Hawai‘i Beef Pro­ducers, which runs Hāmākua’s processing facilities and oversees JJ’s annual barbecue. JJ’s famed rib eye, served with baked beans, is seasoned with Hawai­ian salt. Another paniolo favorite can be found at JJ’s, and it’s available year-round. “We have a special recipe for teriyaki sauce,” Mattos says. “The best thing is that you can use it in so many other ways than as a marinade—in stir-fries, for example.” JJ’s will be selling the marinade in bottles starting this fall.

Hawai‘i’s embrace of different trends in food production bodes well for hungry visitors seeking the old-fashioned flavors of the Old West. When Cal and Kay Lum started North Shore Cattle Co. in the foothills of the Ko‘olau on O‘ahu 10 years ago, they thought they would raise cattle as a hobby on just 600 acres of land. Cal, known as “Doc,” was about to retire from a long career as a state veterinarian. “I missed the old-fashioned taste of the lean, local pasture-fed beef that was so common in my youth,” he says, “and the way it was prepared, with family recipes for meat loaf or beef stew that get developed over generations. I also missed the tradition of families eating together around a big table in the kitchen.”

Soon, Doc’s ranch produced great beef, and Kay started pairing it with her favorite recipes. Before they knew it, Alan Wong, one of Hawai‘i’s most celebrated chefs, signed on for regular beef deliveries. Today, the ranch is a full-on business and has nearly doubled its original size, with Doc’s children in­volved. What’s more, on all the Islands, forage-fed beef, paniolo-style, is becoming widely available, and chefs’ menus reflect the paniolo’s past.

“Overall, we are seeing a revitalization of locally raised produce,” Doc says. “That is really the basis of any type of paniolo food.”

Then he reminded me about the secret paniolo ingredient that brings out the best in any cowboy stew: “Don’t forget to add some bourbon or other whisky.”

SOPHIA V. SCHWEITZER, an award-winning free-lance writer and author, lives in North Kohala on the Big Island. She specializes in all things Hawai‘i, food and wine, and sustainable living. Con­tact her at www.sophiavschweitzer.com

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