Emeril: Beyond the Bam!
The chef says his Portuguese heritage is a big influence on his cooking, which he brings to town this weekend. When Emeril Lagasse arrives in Honolulu this week, he won’t be heading for the beach. Instead, America’s favorite chef has other plans. “I’ll be making a beeline for hot malasadas,” says Emeril. “As far as I know, you can only find fresh malasadas in Hawaii and in my hometown, Fall River (Mass.).”
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The chef says his Portuguese heritage is a big influence on his cooking, which he brings to town this weekend
When Emeril Lagasse arrives in Honolulu this week, he won’t be heading for the beach. Instead, America’s favorite chef has other plans.
“I’ll be making a beeline for hot malasadas,” says Emeril. “As far as I know, you can only find fresh malasadas in Hawaii and in my hometown, Fall River (Mass.).”
And after he’s found the malassadas?
“I’m always on the lookout for Sam Choy,” he says, breaking into a big laugh.
The two have been good friends since meeting 25 years ago on Maui, and speak of each other in glowing terms.
“I tell you,” Sam says, “I knew as soon as we met that we would be friends.” Same thing apparently was true for the young chef visiting from New Orleans.
“I still remember our first meeting,” says Emeril. “We were at the home of a mutual friend, Shep Gordon. I heard Sam was a good golfer and I wanted to learn the game. We played golf, we made some poke and we cooked together.”
Today, the two celebrity chefs share a deep mutual admiration.
“Emeril is just an incredible guy,” says Sam. “He does so much, but he is always the same real person.”
“Sam is a great human being,” says Emeril with equal enthusiasm.
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Despite busy schedules, the two make time to meet whenever they can. Sam’s changing his Mainland schedule to fly back to Honolulu next week to catch Emeril before he leaves, hopefully making time to cook. “Oh, and Emeril loves to fish,” says Sam.
But before he hangs out with family and friends, Emeril gets busy at The Kahala Food and Wine Classic Saturday and Sunday, and at an event at Ford Island Sunday, bringing a taste of his signature “new New Orleans cuisine” to the Islands. The food offers an approach to classic creole cuisine that’s centered on fresh, local ingredients and the changing seasons.
Emeril has been using locally grown produce since he opened his first restaurant 20 years ago.
His hometown didn’t just fuel a passion for Portuguese pastries. It’s the place Emeril credits with inspiring his love of food, music and community. Despite catchphrases like “bam!” and “kick it up,” which have become part of the vernacular, along with an easy ability to whip audiences into a near-frenzied state with the mere mention of the word gahlic, Emeril Lagasse is first and foremost a chef, and a man who respects food and its deep relationship to cultures and communities.
Growing up in a thriving Portuguese community within walking distance of acclaimed markets, restaurants and bakeries, his hometown proximity to ocean and childhood visits to family farms helped Emeril develop a respect for food and its origins.
“I was passionate about food and about music from the beginning,” he says, his warm New England accent much softer on the phone than it seems on television.
A gifted musician, he composed and played music at an early age, learning a variety of instruments and becoming proficient as a percussionist. When he earned a prestigious scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music, he was faced with a tough decision.
“I knew that I wanted to cook, although I was passionate about my music, too,” he says. “I chose to pay my way through culinary school and give up the music scholarship.”
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He jokes that the decision wasn’t popular with his parents, but in truth he had their complete support. In fact, his mom Hilda got Emeril his first after-school job working in the local bakery.
“I think that growing up in our Portuguese community with the food and the cultural influences made a big impression on me, and I’ve never forgotten those early influences, the people who cooked in our community and the importance of regional food,” he says.
He found a familiar sense of place and an energized sense of purpose when he arrived in New Orleans in 1982.
Taking over the reins from Paul Prudhomme at legendary Commander’s Palace, it was to the farmers and fishermen Emeril turned to first to help create the cuisine that would become “new” New Orleans.
“I fell in love with New Orleans immediately,” he says. “In Louisiana, the styles and cultural influences of the French and the Spanish and the African Americans are pretty close to my roots. My dad is French Canadian and my mom is Portuguese, so there are a lot of similarities.”
In New Orleans, Emeril began to teach his sous chefs what he’d learned in culinary school, and in his time spent in Paris and Lyon. Soon they knew how to cure meats and make sausage, and Emeril began to ask local farmers to raise pigs and grow produce for him. His culinary influences came together in New Orleans, and he began to build the foundations of his empire, all from scratch.
It’s no wonder, then, that he feels at home in Hawaii, where regional cuisine prevails and where our fish auction and farms offer some of the best produce in the country.
“I love Hawaii,” Emeril says with real enthusiasm. “I love to visit and I just love to eat here. It’s really refreshing. I look forward to the freshness of the food, the tropical influences and to eating local food. You know, I’ve never ever had a bad meal in Hawaii. I love to search out local foods, to smell Huli Huli chicken, to
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