Post #631906 by nichols on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 11:37 AM

Charles Perry on Tiki Cuisine
The Rise and Fall of Tiki

When: Saturday, April 21st, 2012 at 2:00 PM
What: Free Lecture at Pacific Palisades Library
Where: 861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades
Who: The public is invited to this event.

In the 1930s, two California restaurateurs created the Polynesian restaurant phenomenon that would sweep the country in the 1950s. Tiki restaurants, remembered fondly (and maybe a little ruefully), were over-the-top intoxicating environments, smelling of tropical fruits and flowers, their ceilings hung with puffer-fish lamps and outrigger canoes. You ate luscious sweet-and-sour dishes while being entertained by graceful hula dancing and sweet, dreamlike Hawaiian music. It was overwhelming – lyrical, jovial, romantic and sensuous, though certainly naive and mannered.

And yet the phenomenon collapsed practically overnight in the 1970s. Charles Perry tells the story of the rise and fall of Tiki. Mr. Perry has written for the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and other publications, as well as translated cookbooks from medieval Baghdad, Central Asia, and other cultures.

http://chscsite.org/charles-perry-on-tiki-cuisine/