Love, tuna in Island care boxes

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Writer

This question has bothered me for years, ever since I was in my first year at a Mainland college, ever since that initial cardboard box arrived in the mail, ever since I tore open the fourteen layers of strapping tape and pulled apart the 15 Longs plastic bags (stuffed in there as "padding") to find out what was inside.

Why is it, when we send care packages to Hawai'i expatriates on the Mainland, we send cans of tuna?

There's nothing like receiving a box from Hawai'i when you're far away.

It makes the distance between you and home a little bit smaller. Sometimes it makes you more homesick, but in a sweet way. It's nice to miss home when your home is so worthy of being missed.

The standard care package contents include the things you can't get your hands on when you're away. Stuff you can't live without.

Like prune mui and baby seed. Maybe you hadn't had li hing anything in years back in Hawai'i, but the second you set foot on foreign soil, something strange happens. The yearning for a big bag of mango seed hits hard.

When that package comes, you have to decide whether to ration it out slowly or snarf it down in one breath.

Dried ebi and cuttle fish are always a good bet in a care package. Not only are those hard-to-find in lots of places, both serve as excellent roommate repellents. There's nothing like busting open a package of hot ika to clear out the dorm.

And then there's the thing about the chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Let's be honest, us guys, we don't eat that stuff. We buy it for people from the Mainland.ÊBut when you're far away and out of touch, those Hawaiian Hosts are the most ono thing you've tasted in your whole life.

But the canned tuna. What's that about? It's like we think you can't buy tuna anywhere else in the world but here.

At first, I thought it was just a college-time thing. Local Moms get these horrifying visions of their kids having nothing to eat but Cheese Wiz and ketchup soup while they're away at school. (And yes, there are Moms on the Neighbor Islands who send cans of tuna to their kids at UH Manoa.)

Yet I've heard stories of people well past their college years still getting those tuna packages in the mail, people who live not in remote areas, but big cosmopolitan cities where there's a tuna shop on every corner.

Every time I've asked the question, of my mom, of other moms, of people who have either sent or received those cans of tuna, I always got it thrown back at me.Ê

"So what did you do with the tuna you got in the mail?"

I ate 'em, of course.

"So what's your problem?"

Oh.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Her e-mail address is lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com