New twists on cake mix, Jell-O, and potato chips

I wasn't lying when I noted that Still More of Our Favorite Recipes (Maui Extension Homemakers' Council, 1967) features a lot of recipes that seem like they might be authentic Asian/ Pacific Islander, based on this Midwesterner's unfamiliarity with ingredients and the near-absence of prepackaged ingredients. The book still does feature some recipes more like what I would expect in fundraising cookbooks from the Midwest, dumping a few packaged goods together and calling it good. Even here, though, the recipe writers put their own distinctive spin on things. 

Appetizers in the Midwest usually involve dairy and/or meaty things made into a paste and spread on crackers or toast points, or if the texture is looser, used as a dip for chips (for the unpretentious). baguette slices (for the fancy), or veggies (for those who want to pretend that a carrot negates a pound of sour cream). When Midwesterners want rigatoni, they serve it as a main dish after filling it up with cheese and/or ground meat, baking it under a layer of jarred tomato sauce (and maybe more cheese), and call it good. 

In Hawaii, though, rigatoni is an appetizer.

And it's filled with tuna or salmon salad and served cold. So same canned fish and glob of mayo as a Midwest casserole or salad, but totally different application.

I've listed a jillion gelatin-based fruit salads from the Midwest, a region also known for its pasta salads. I don't normally see attempts to combine the two, though. Enter Hawaii! 

The Alphabet Fruit Salad isn't alphabet because the gelatin is loaded with a, b, c ingredients like apples, bananas, and cantaloupe. Nope! This gelatin has fruit, cottage cheese, and alphabet macaroni, like a combination of various midwestern salads (and maybe a soup) into a single super-salad.

When Midwesterners combine a cake mix with gelatin, they bake the cake (usually white or yellow) using the cake mix, poke holes into it, and pour gelatin in the holes. Hawaiians apparently have a very different cake-Jell-O combo.

Mix lemon gelatin, adding instant coffee to the hot water. Partially prepare chocolate cake mix. Dump in the gelatin mixture (and an unspecified amount of lemon extract to accent the lemon so the mocha won't overpower it). Then bake. Again-- same basics: cake mix, Jell-O-- but very different applications.

And finally, potato chips are certainly no strangers to midwestern recipes. They're a beloved casserole topping, adding a pop of crisp to concoctions that would otherwise be pure mush. This use of potato chips, on the other hand... I have no frame of reference.

Why is it called Fried Potato Chips? The chips were already fried before they were packaged, and here the addition of water to the bacon/ onion / chip mixture makes it look like they're boiled more than fried. Then the whole thing is showered with hard cooked egg slices. It's got a lot of the basic midwestern casserole ingredients-- chips, bacon, onion, hard-cooked eggs, but it's just an entirely different procedure.

Even when this book offers something that seems like it will be familiar, the recipe takes an unexpected turn. There's almost a sense of suspense as one reads from the title and ingredients to the procedure, so the book is a real page-turner, whether you come for the authentic island recipes or for the twists on packaged goods that we didn't consider on the mainland.

I hope you enjoyed this trip to Hawaii in mid-January! I needed a little tropical escape from the 11-degree morning.