Take an egg. Hard-boil it. Peel it. Make a teriyaki sauce. Wrap the egg in paper-thin sukiyaki-style beef. Secure the meat around the egg with cotton string. Stew the beef-wrapped egg in the sauce, pull it out with the string and then serve it over hot rice.

This is the kind of food — inventive, unique to its place and a little bit quirky — that will do what the Smithsonian Institution's "Key Ingredients" traveling exhibition, arriving in Hawai'i on Saturday, is meant to do: Start conversations.

Subtitled "America by Food," its photographic panels, interactive devices and other aspects (such as a scavenger hunt for visiting classroom students) offer a history of American foodways and what they tell us about ourselves — our roots, our resources, our changing ways of life.

The exhibit is the work of the Museum on Main Street branch of the Smithsonian, the "little shows" arm that creates traveling collections for smaller sites, places that otherwise would never see a Smithsonian production, explained Carol Harsh, co-director for Museum on Main Street and SITES (the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service).

Speaking by phone from Washington, Harsh said it is heartwarming and sometimes heart-wrenching to see and hear how "Key Ingredients" affects both communities and audiences.

There was the exhibition in rural eastern Kentucky, a mining area, where for some reason, a tight-knit group of Italians settled, bringing not just their recipes but their beautiful dishware, which is on display. There, first- and second-generation miners have gladly turned out to rock on the porch of the exhibition venue and tell their stories.

In Kansas, German and Swedish communities that have been living side by side without much amity came together to put a "Key Ingredients" presentation together, mounting a joint effort for the first time.

One woman told Harsh that she had always hated to cook and never understood why until "Key Ingredients" caused her to think about her childhood: growing up with a single working mother.

Because her mother was gone so much, the family rarely had meals together; there was none of the camaraderie around the supper table that we are taught to expect. She had always resented that, and had not adopted a family dinner hour for her own children; she had tears in her eyes as she told the story.

Because the Main Street exhibits are produced in concert with state humanities councils, each "Key Ingredients" show has a local partner.

In Hawai'i, these include the Kapi'olani Community College culinary program, the Kapolei library, the Lyman Museum and Maui Community College. Each venue is developing its own adjunct to the exhibit, collecting artifacts and planning events.

In Hawai'i, Daniel Leung, educational specialist in the KCC Culinary Arts Department, has been consumed by the process of producing nearly 20 panels for the exhibit, and is fascinated by what he has learned.

The Bishop Museum opened its photographic archives, and he was faced with choosing from among dozens of images, from "manapua men" to posed publicity shots of young women harvesting World War II "victory gardens."

For Leung, and the Hawai'i Humanities Council's Loretta Pang, a KCC professor emeritus, designated as the "project scholar," one thing that stands out is "full circle."

Before sugar cane and pineapple, Hawai'i was a very diversified agricultural environment, producing most of the food people here needed. It is widely considered vital that we become so again, or at least strive toward that goal.

In addition to the exhibition itself, a learning program has been developed not just for the national part but for the Hawai'i segment as well, composed of essays that will be used with local students to help them ground themselves in Island food traditions and challenge them to understand how those traditions influence our everyday lives.

Pang and Leung make an interesting point: That, while Hawai'i food history certainly is one of a kind, it should not be romanticized. Multicultural blending has been a defining point of food history all over America.

"It's easy to overemphasize our uniqueness. Looking at the larger storyboard, we are part of the larger story of what role food plays in society," said Pang.

Like those Italians in Kentucky or the Swedes and Germans in Kansas, we have interacted, adapted and created new traditions from our old ones.