Hawaii's Share Your Table

Humans have been eating sweet iced desserts — water ices  — since at least the 14^th century when, it is said, Marco Polo was introduced to the dish in China, bringing the idea back to Italy and giving birth to sorbets, gelato and eventually ice cream. The first iced desserts are believed to have been made with snow, carried down from high peaks in containers insulated with hay or grasses. Snow continued to be used in this way, or to pack around ice cream churns, until refrigeration was invented.

(And, as Advertiser columnist Lee Cataluna recalled in a 2006 column, snow played a role even after that; when families traveled up to Mauna Kea to see snow, they packed Malolo Syrup to pour over handfuls of snow for a satisfying snack.)

In Hawai’i, it’s widely believed that Japanese gave us shave ice, because many of the machines used to shave ice blocks are made in Japan, known for their skill with cutting devices. However, American-made ice shaving equipment has also been found — in the collection of the Hawaiian Plantation Village, for example. And places like New Orleans claim “snow cones” as native food as vehemently as Hawai’i does.

But since there’s little written history of shave ice, who can say where it came from and how we got it in Hawai’i?

Today, shave ice (called, stubbornly and inexplicably, ice shave by Hiloans) has taken on a multicultural, multifaceted new life. From Japan comes the custom of nestling a spoonful of sweetened azuki beans in the shave ice cup. From the West, the combination of shave ice and ice cream. From the Philippines, fruit, soft young coconut, evaporated or sweetened condensed milk. From Southeast Asia, bubbles of tapioca. And from the creative minds of countless shave ice makers, a wild range of Day-Glo colors and bizarre flavor combinations have taken the place of my childhood’s basic “red” or “orange.”

We’re not offering a recipe because, of course, shave ice is never made at home.