Big Island Hawai'i has rural flare, the unexpected jack fruit tree growing behind the parking lot that hosts traveling vehicles, now at rest so drivers can eat doughnuts. Inside we go to retrieve a rectangle chunk—five inches length and four inches width yet four inches depth—that can never be labeled a doughnut for the sheer quantity of deep and fried and crunchy. Sugar granules add extra bite.

But I rely on the doughnut word simply for familiar reference, dear reader; alas, let's acknowledge we are in another land, this Big Island Hawaii, which is why the name malasada applies for that is what this “doughnut” is. Food origins or the backstory for any culinary pirouette (didn't I mention flare?) in modern Hawai'i are goodly to godly complex for the place has diverse travelers arriving with longstanding food traditions and histories they brought over with them on the boat. Later, on the airplane. Many claim the malasada has origins in Portugal. A mystery for future exploring.

For now the right attitude on ordering a malasada adheres to that humble life sledgehammer that timing is all. Wisely knock yourself up your head and grab that free pocket of time—maybe ten minutes or perhaps you live large and have an hour—to dip chunks of malasada torn from the small loaf, indulgingly dip the deep-fried luxury in Kona coffee and stretch the feet completely under the table. Go ahead and supine, best your type A personality allows. When consciousness returns, repeat the culinary pattern. Your malasada soul will thank you later.

Tex Mex in Honokaa owns the best recipe on Big Island (maybe globally?) and rushing the caffeine and doughy combo undermines effective immersion, a food sensory dip that only slow-time can gift. If not a coffee drinker, the malasada in well-paced chunks can be dunked with other well-paired beverage selections made at the ordering window. Take your time to select the just-right one. And as far as malasada filling—the inside scoop of delicious—myriad flavors are available, making one malasada a small kine meal in a way: Bavarian crème, chocolate, mango, apple and others.

And that brings the malasada excursion back to jack fruit—which is not a malasada filling flavor at Tex Mex. Once you leave the manicured resort with a chlorinated swimming pool—and these locations serve spiritually as well—what changes is the Hawaiian terrain as in spontaneous growth that nature produces because she so powerfully can. Take the jack fruit tree thriving adjacent a few feet away from a cement parking lot, Tex Mex's. Sitting on a chair at a back roads cafe on Big Island, when you look up and around and behind, kinda guaranteed that you will see food growing: papaya, avocado, banana, mango, jack fruit and much more.

This is what the food gods call culinary serendipity. One afternoon a friend and I walked the Tex Mex parking lot to revive some after malasada stupor, the pleasant kind, and saw a ripe jack fruit had fallen to the ground. Please do not go randomly harvesting food from the aina for local cultural protocols need inquiry and in our case we asked, and paused, and inquired and seemed positive to bring the jack fruit with us for later. Food wisdom had shown how to enjoy the slow afternoon and value abundance for another culinary adventure soon enough.