Travel Table Talks with Marina Vol. 3 - Every Cuisine Has a Hot Pocket - Part 1 of However Many It Takes
About ten years ago I created and ran a mobile culinary education program called Lavender's Culinary where I taught kids and adults how to cook. I was in the middle of explaining what an empanada was to a group of kids and I was losing them completely. And then it just came out of my mouth. It is like a hot pocket. The whole room went ahhh. Suddenly there was a great equalizer and everyone understood. To this day whenever I find the hot pocket of a particular cuisine it makes me smile.
That moment has never left me. Because the more I looked at food in my various roles as Executive Chef, the more hot pockets I found. Empanadas. Ravioli. Samosas. Pierogi. Gyoza. Piroshki. Knish. The list is genuinely endless. Every culture, every cuisine, every corner of the world independently arrived at the same beautiful idea. Take something delicious. Wrap it in dough. Make it portable. Feed your people.
So this is my promise to you. Everywhere I travel I am going to find that cuisine's hot pocket, eat it, and tell you about it. The food, the history, the why and the how it got there. This series has no end date. It ends when I run out of world, which I do not plan to do anytime soon.
Part 1 starts where my story starts. Hawaii. And given that we are right in the middle of AAPI Heritage Month, the timing could not feel more right.
The Manapua Man
I grew up in Hawaii until I was nine years old. And like every kid on the island, I knew the sound of the manapua man the way mainland kids knew the ice cream truck.
The manapua truck was Hawaii's ice cream truck. Before food trucks were trendy, the manapua man beeped his horn and the whole neighborhood came running. You grabbed whatever change you could find and you ran. Shave ice for maybe 25 cents. Fried noodles in a waxed paper bag. And manapua. Warm, slightly sweet, impossibly soft steamed buns with bright BBQ pork inside. I know now that pork is called Char Siu. At seven years old I just knew it was the best thing I had ever eaten and it cost me about a quarter.
I left Hawaii at nine. I did not get back until last month. Forty six years later.
Chinatown, Honolulu. Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery.
I did my research before we landed, googling, asking locals and anyone really, who would entertain my query. Finding a bakery that still makes manapua the old way, has made them for decades, and is beloved by locals rather than tourists takes a little digging. The internet helps. So do good travel friends. Thanks to Justyn and Lawrence for pointing me in the right direction.
The address took us to Chinatown in Honolulu, one of the oldest Chinatowns in the United States. The Chinese who introduced manapua to the islands called it Char Siu Bao, sweet pork bun. But the Hawaiians called it mea ono, meaning pastry, and pua'a, meaning pork. Manapua. And Chinatown is exactly where it belongs. Chinese characters on the street signs and storefronts. Retail shops packed floor to ceiling. And the most incredible smells hanging in the air the moment you step out of the car.
We walked down the broken cement sidewalk to Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery at 1027 Maunakea Street. First visit there were about five people in line. When we came back on the way to the airport there were over twenty. I wish I could tell you it was a leisurely experience. It was not. This is not a place for dawdling. There were bins of spices and Chinese ingredients that any chef would want to stop and smell and examine for an hour. There was no time for that. They move you through and they are not apologetic about it.
I ate them in the car. Then I bought another package for the flight home and ate manapua at 30,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific. Honestly one of the better meals I have had on a plane.
Why Manapua Is Hawaii's Hot Pocket
Manapua is not just a snack. It is a whole story about immigration, adaptation, and what happens when cultures collide on a small island in the middle of the Pacific.
In the mid-1800s Chinese immigrants arrived in Hawaii, primarily from the Guangdong province, to work the sugar and pineapple plantations. They brought char siu bao with them as a practical field lunch. Portable, filling, cheap, and a taste of home in the middle of hard physical labor. After their plantation contracts ended many became merchants and food vendors, loading carts and later trucks with fresh steamed buns and driving through neighborhoods. The Hawaiian language gave it a new name. Mea ono pua'a. Delicious pork thing. Which might honestly be the most perfect food name ever given.
Then it evolved. In Hawaii the buns got bigger to serve as a standalone meal. The char siu filling got sweeter, with oyster sauce, honey, and a touch of red food coloring making it distinctly Hawaiian rather than strictly Cantonese.
And then there is Bat Moi Kam Mau. A woman, a visionary, and the person credited with creating the large format manapua we know today. She opened her shop Char Hung Sut in 1946 and changed the size, the format, and the future of manapua in Hawaii. We love a woman who builds something from scratch and feeds an entire culture while she is at it. During AAPI Heritage Month we especially love her.
It is a dying breed now. You do not see the manapua truck going down the road anymore in most neighborhoods. But the bakeries that have been making them for generations are still there if you know to look. And the locals who grew up on them never forgot.
Neither did I.
If you find yourself in Honolulu and want to try something genuinely local, known mostly to people who grew up there, and absolutely delicious, reach out. I will send you the link.
And if you have a hot pocket from your part of the world that I need to know about, tell me. I am building a list and I intend to eat every single one of them.
Eat curious. Travel intentional.
Warmly, Marina
2 Tacks Travel, LLC
Marina Tack, TAEC, CATA
Ocean & River Cruise Specialist
Office: 252-489-4553
Cell: 252-455-0144
marina.tack@avoyanetwork.com
www.2TacksTravel.com
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