Best Eats in the Field

I want to thank Jerry Hulse for his article on “Lanai” (Oct. 2). I spent the summer of 1964 on the island harvesting for Dole. My brother and I worked the 2 to 11 p.m. shift because of the additional earning potential, which was $1.46 an hour versus $1.41 an hour on the day shift. While wages have no doubt increased since then, it sounds like nothing else has changed. The finest meals on the island were in the field. Each harvest crew member would carry an aluminum cow-cow can that has the appearance of a small, cylindrical double broiler about the size of a standard lunch box.

The bottom section of the cow-cow contained warm rice. The top section was for each person’s entree, typically squid, venison, pork, fish or vegetables.

At dinner hour in the field the crews would sit in small circles in the roads near their harvest trucks. Each crew member would hold his or her rice and place the entree in the circle for all crew members to share. Dessert, of course, was fresh pineapple--eaten like a Popsicle.

In the mornings on the golf course sometimes we would have to wait for a deer to leave a fairway before we could play through.

RICHARD W. LAMBERT

Newport Beach