It’s been a while since chef Adam Tabura took the stage to showcase his culinary skills.
“My brother Lanai reached out to me and said ‘Hey do you want to do a gig in the food show we used to do?’ I did it for years before and I’ve been laying low for three years, I figured it’s time to come back out and share what I’m doing,” Tabura said.
That’s how Tabura joined this year’s Food and New Product Expo, Hawaii’s largest and longest-running consumer trade show with over 260 different vendors. The event has run for 62 years and draws as many as 15,000 attendees.
Tabura talked story throughout his demo, sharing how he grew up on Lana’i and at the age of 17, saved a tourist from drowning at Manele Bay. The man and his wife later went on to pay for Tabura’s culinary school expenses to thank him for saving his life.
Tabura started a spice line called Manele Bay, in honor of the incident that changed his life and the popular beach he frequented throughout his life.
“It goes back to the story of saving the man on the beach in 1998. One, I’m from Lana’i, Manele is one of my favorite spots on the earth. I find peace there, I’m safe there, my family grew up there for generations,” Tabura said.
Tabura showed the crowd how he cooks laulau, a traditional Hawaiian dish, using a pressure cooker, cutting a process that typically takes up to two days by half through modern technology.
“The demo was basically teaching people to home cook or someone in the foreign land about Hawaiian food. Hawaiian food, specifically laulau, was cooked in an underground oven, it was a long process. The food that comes out of it, if it’s done right, is so memorable,” Tabura said.
The Food and New Product show is organized by Pacific Expos and has more upcoming events such as the Mele Kalikimaka Marketplace, taking place December 14-15. Visit pacificexpos.com/ourexpos for more information.
Ally Whaley is a senior studying journalism at UH Mānoa and is mainly interested in investigative journalism and hopes to help victims of abuse.
