FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Alu Like publishes favorite elder recipes

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

"Alu Like's Healthy Local Recipes for Hawai'i's Kupuna"; Mutual Publishing, spiral-bound, $12.95

For 19 years, Alu Like has been offering a variety of support systems to Native Hawaiians, including its services for the elderly program, Ke Ola No Na Kupuna, which includes a nutritious lunch offering at centers on five islands. Now writer Elizabeth Meahl has gathered together all the recipes that have been devised for, and used in that program for a new collection called "Alu Like's Healthy Local Recipes for Hawai'i's Kupuna" (Mutual Publishing, spiral-bound, $12.95).

Many of the recipes have roots in Hawaiian tradition (mamaki tea, poke, chicken lu'au, pohole salad) but the book is truly multi-ethnic, with recipes from every one of the Islands' modern cultural traditions.

Each recipe includes per-serving nutritional analysis and there are snacks, soups, salads, vegetables, main dishes, breads and desserts. The nutritionists and cooks who developed these recipes for the meals program make use of low-salt, low-fat and low-sugar ingredients (such as low-sodium shoyu, extra-lean ground beef, skim milk and so on); reduce the oil and fat by using techniques other than frying or using the absolute minimum oil when they do saute ingredients; and try to focus on ingredients and dishes that are pleasing to older diners (not difficult to chew, packed with needed protein).

These are predominantly old-style recipes that will remind you of Grandma's kitchen — fish-ball soup, tuna patties, curry stew, beef hekka, baked bananas.

Few of the dishes are at all complex. Many require just a few ingredients and make use of convenience foods such as canned goods. Some of the ideas are quite interesting: making inamona relish and chili-pepper water without the salt; serving cubes of firm, baked tofu as a snack with a little low-sodium shoyu or chili-pepper water, making musubi with half brown, half white rice, "potato" salad made with taro and sweet potato and a minimum of mayonnaise.

Besides recipes and photos from various Alu Like events over the years, the book is enlivened with many "Hunehune Mea Hou," or "bits of news." These range from ideas for how to snack sensibly to information about traditional Hawaiian eating patterns.

The book makes the important point that salt is a habit-forming ingredient and that like any other habit, this one can be broken with time and determination. These ideas should help elders with that difficult task — and it wouldn't hurt for us younger folk to get used to cooking with less salt and shoyu now, to avoid some of the problems associated with high-sodium diets later in life.