Talk:Pu pu platter

Hawaiian language origin?

Since the foods found in North American pu pu platters are generally Chinese (Cantonese) in origin, I'd assumed the name was also of Chinese (Cantonese) origin. But the recent edits state that the name is of Hawaiian language origin. Do you contend that the change from "pupu" (Native Hawaiian) to "bou2 bou2" (Cantonese) is an example of folk etymology on the part of these Cantonese restaurateurs? If so, is there some evidence in the form of articles or books that discuss this? The fact that the tray still used for pupu platters in North America are made of carved wood would seem to indicate a Hawaiian/Polynesian origin of this dish rather than a continental Asian one, so there may be some validity to the Hawaiian etymology and origin. But some sources should be provided. Badagnani 18:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I would say that yes, the Cantonese "bou2 bou2" is folk etymology, but on the part of English-speakers. I base this on the responses I've gotten from Cantonese restauranteurs. I have done some five years of research on this (off and on), however, including interviewing numerous Chinese chefs, including in Beijing and in Guangdong Province. None of them have ever heard of the pupu platter. Those few Chinese who have heard of it (San Francisco Chinese)claimed variously that it was of Hawaiian, Polynesian, or American origin. I'm unable to find any authoritative written negative documentation, but I think that is to be expected when we are looking for something that does not exist. Don't know if it helps, but I am Hawaiian/Chinese/Caucasian, and since 1983 have been a cooking writer focusing on Hawaiian/Asian food. My grandmother was a big fan of tiki culture, and I kind of grew up in it. Anyway, right now, my focus on this is to try and find a Chinese etymologist to help. Hula Rider (talk) 10:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC) Hula Rider, 12:32 December 2009.

So, most likely "pupu" is Hawaiian, and some Cantonese restaurateur came up with the ad hoc "bou2 bou2" spelling in order to typeset it in Chinese characters, as most Chinese restaurant menus used to have Chinese characters as well as English, for ease of reading by non-English-reading Chinese diners. It probably started with one restaurateur and spread to all others. Keep researching and let us know what you find. Badagnani (talk) 18:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm going through old cookbooks. Lots of references in Hawaiian cookbooks pre 1985 to "pupu," usually defined as "a Hawaiian canape or hors d'oeuvre." NO references so far to either "pupu" or "bou bou" in any Chinese or Chinese-American cookbooks. Descriptions I am getting from older relatives of early "pupu platters" appear to be basically Japanese sushi platters served in Caucasian-owned tiki lounges. -Hula Rider Hula Rider (talk) 00:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Typsetting as "bou2 bou2" in Characters would make sense, which also would explain the American pronunciation, POOH-poo. The Hawaiian uses the macron over both u, so it is pronounced poo-POOoo, with both "oo"s given double time value. Anyway, to me it is really looking like the "pupu platter" is a 20th century synthesis of Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Southern Polynesian, and South-East Asian finger-food and street-food. I expect using "pupu" for all of the above comes from Hawai`i. The earliest I can get people to remember seeing pupu platters is in places like Don the Beachcomber's and Trader Vics. Apparantly it spread to Chinese venues sometime after its introduction there.

I'm going to recommend that it no longer be called "Chinese American cuisine" but "Pacific Rim cuisine."

Who came up with the idea that it is Chinese? A few years afo, the only place I ever saw or heard that claim was in Wikipedia. Now it is in a couple of on-line dictionaries, but I have yet to find any documentation to support it. Hula Rider (talk) 00:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The dish is absolutely a fixture in American Chinese cuisine, whatever the origin might be. Badagnani (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Earliest Google Books mention: 1970. See [1]. Badagnani (talk) 01:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Earliest New York Times mentions

• 1. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Restaurants; From China to Italy by word of mouth. [PDF]

THE word was out that things were looking up gastronomically at the Peking Park Restau rant on the corner of Park Avenue and 40th Street. Three new chefs were reported to be at work in the kitchen, one from a popular Chinatown Cantonese restaurant and the...View free preview June 30, 1978 - Mimi Sheraton - Article

• 2. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Chinese Restaurants:; A Guide to the Best in the State [PDF]

FOR most of us in the metropolitan area, the search for fine Chinese cuisine usually ends in that labyrinthine 15-square block neighborhood of downtown Manhattan called Chinatown....View free preview December 3, 1978 - By EILEEN YIN-FEI LO - Article

• 3. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. DINING OUT; Fine Hunanese Food in Riverside *Hunan Garden [PDF]

RIVERSIDE CHINESE restaurants, and those offering other cuisines, may well be only as good as their customers. Our experience suggests that if the clientele is demanding and knowl edgeable, the chef soon knows it and performs accordingly....View free preview January 6, 1980 - By PATRICIA BROOKS - Article

• 4. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. DINING OUT; Flavorful Food at Low Prices *The Golden Wok [PDF]

THE Golden Wok in Yonkers is in the tradition of homely little Chinese restaurants that serve exceptionally good food. Tucked away in a Central Avenue shopping center with a half-acre of automobiles at the door, with red-flocked Victorian paper on one wal...View free preview January 6, 1980 - By M.H. REED - Article

• 5. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. DINING OUT Red on Menu Means Fire on Palate; House of Lok [PDF]

UNLIKE most of the Szechuan Chinese restaurants I have visited on the Island, House of Lok in Southampton is not timid when it comes to the spice. The name of a dish printed in red on the menu is an honest signal of hot seasoning....View free preview January 14, 1979 - By FLORENCE FABRICANT - Article

• 6. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. COUNTRY DINING [PDF]

View free preview October 9, 1970 - Article

• 7. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Article 2 -- No Title [PDF]

View free preview July 3, 1970 - Article

• 8. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Dining Out in Jersey [PDF]

Restaurants are rated for their food (four stars to none) and for their atmosphere, service and decor (four triangles to none....View free preview December 2, 1972 - Article

• 9. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Dining Out In New Jersey [PDF]

The restaurants reviewed here are rated four stars to none, based on the writer's judgment of quality in relation to the price of meals and the quality of comparable establishments....View free preview September 29, 1973 - Article

• 10. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Restaurants; Vegetarian, yes, but also South Indian [PDF]

SUGGEST a restaurant that is staunchly, strictly vegetarian, without meat, fish or eggs in any form, add to that the phrase low cholesterol, and you will probably turn away people by the dozens. Yet the diner sampling the palate-teasing, soul-satisfying c...View free preview December 9, 1977 - Mimi Sheraton - Article

• 11. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Article 2 -- No Title [PDF]

View free preview August 21, 1970 - Article

• 12. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Article 1 -- No Title [PDF]

View free preview April 24, 1970 - Article

• 13. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. FOOD; Happy New Year--Chinese Style [PDF]

WHAT are you doing New Year's Eve? It's none too soon to plan. According to the Oriental lunar calendar, the Year of the Snake, 4,676, will be ushered in at sundown Thursday....View free preview February 13, 1977 - By FLORENCE FABRICANT The New York Times/Louis Manna - Article

• 14. Article available with Home Delivery/Times Reader subscription or for purchase. Dining Out in New Jersey [PDF]

Restaurants are rated for their food (four stars to none) and for their atmosphere, service and decor (four triangles to none.)...View free preview December 29, 1972 - By JEAN HEWITT - Article

Badagnani (talk) 01:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That's really interesting. I'm not going to pay for subscriptions to get into all those citations, but I trust your research. Certainly if the first tiki lounges introduced the term near the close of WWII, that is plenty of time for the pupu platter to become well-entrenched across the continent by the 1970s. After all, the "traditional Hawaiian custom" of giving a kiss with a lei also began during WWII! I've not heard back from any Chinese etymologists regarding the origin of the name, but have some others I'm planning to contact. Hula Rider (talk) 06:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The sinicization (putting into Chinese characters) may actually have first occurred in New York City in the 1970s. From there, the dish became well known as an "American Chinese cuisine" dish in all states of the mainland. Badagnani (talk) 07:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I did a Lexis-Nexis search as well as a Google Books search and all seems to indicate that on the mainland this item is inseparably tied to tiki culture. This particular one ascribes its "invention" to Don the Beachcomber. Of course, modern-day American Chinese cuisine still has many elements of the cuisine served in such tiki restaurants, as pioneered by Don the Beachcomber, such as tiki drinks and many of the Cantonese-style dishes that restaurant served. I suppose we could say that these elements are memes that quickly spread and became part of American Chinese cuisine, but no one thought to write up the history of how this happened. Badagnani (talk) 08:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

A 2008 article in Saveur magazine ascribes the pupu platter's invention to Don the Beachcomber in 1934. See [2]. Badagnani (talk) 08:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I've found some earlier newspaper mentions of "pu pu" in newspapers:

• Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1950 "Correct Island Wear for Visitors Described": PUPU (hors d'oeuvres) [I don't have full text access]
• New York Times, Dec 6, 1957, p. 37 (ad for Luau 400 restaurant): mea i hoa'ai / ko makou / in Island talk mean / "be our guest" ... /// First is served lavish / Pu Pu Platter / laden with Tim Sam, Shrimp Vela, Egg Rolls, Barbecued Spare Ribs and Rumaki... is our sincere belief that nowhere except Hawaii (and more especially in famed Long House of Don The Beachcomber) will you enjoy such Island feast.
• Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1957, p. 14 (ad): This summer, delight your friends by throwing a Pu Pu party. It's an enchantingly different buffet-done just the way they do it in Hawaii. ... [I don't have full text access]

Why did we want earlier references? --macrakis (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

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Awa

Aloha. Looks like there's some confusion about the hawaiian language homonyms for shells and 'awa 'chasers'. It's true these words for shells and 'chasers' are both spelled and pronounced the same, but they mean something different depending on context. In this case, 'pupu' are the bits of food taken after drinking 'awa, to get the taste out of your mouth. 'Awa doesn't taste good and where it's traditionally used, there's usually some 'chaser' to take the taste of it out of your mouth. Nowadays in America, 'pupu' has been transferred to the 'nibbles' you have with alcohol. And that's what this article is about, those canapes. Chinchin, et bon appetit! 'Inu a kena! Hale noa (talk) 07:22, 26 February 2018 (UTC)