Just 100 years ago in Hawaii, everyone was well acquainted with the idea of living off the land, whether by fishing, farming or maintaining an ample backyard garden. In place of supermarkets, many got what they needed by sharing or trading excess produce and homespun goods.

War, the economy and modernization changed all that. When people poured into the job mecca, women departed the home for the workplace, and food became not a labor of love, but a matter of convenience. TV dinners, Jell-O, Tang and other instant, artificial foods suddenly became the height of culinary civilization.

A half-century later, we’ve learned that we pay a hefty price for convenience and factory-made food with our health, and people are looking to the past for strategies for our future. Farm-to-table ideas that started germinating about 30 years ago gained momentum about five years ago, so these days, chef-farmer collaboration dinners are common. 

But, just as the fishing boat is the place to find the freshest sashimi, chefs are now taking diners out of the formal dining room and out to the farms in hope of spreading the word about sustainability, the importance of agriculture and the beauty of farm-fresh produce.

One of the most elaborate examples is the new "Table to Farm" wine dinner and farm tour series launched over the weekend by Sheraton Waikiki executive sous-chef Colin Hazama. At each event, Hazama will partner with a different farm for a two-day experience that begins with a Friday night dinner at the hotel’s oceanfront Edge of Waikiki, followed the next day by a bus ride to the farm for a tour and picnic lunch to show where and how the produce was sourced. The series will continue into 2015.

For a memorable culinary and miniature travel experience, it is well worth the two-day commitment.

The meal Friday night featured produce from Ho Farms. It started with an amuse of a flourless vegetable tart, with smoked tomatoes, basil-eggplant butter and pickled hearts of palm over a cassava cracker. Vodka-cured kampachi with white soy dashi gelee and finger lime caviar was the first course, colorfully dressed with shaved watermelon radish, pickled baby carrots and lemon basil pesto. Those who opted for the wine pairings enjoyed a glass of NV Canella Prosecco.

A "Taste of Ho Farms Salad" showcased pearl onions, golden Kahuku and currant tomato gelee, butternut squash, gherkin cucumber pickles and purple long beans. 

Next up was a delicious duo of cassava-crusted Kauai shrimp accompanied by spiced butternut squash gnocchi, applewood smoked swiss chard, Wailea hearts of palm, baby cucumber pickled mostarda and garlic yuzu crema.

A benefit of a meal like this is it forces those of us who fail to eat enough greens to get our day’s recommended servings in one swoop. Even something as decadent as Kona Brewing beer-battered onaga Fish ‘n’ Chips was accompanied by pickles, calamansi lime pickle vinegar, Chinese long bean fries and pomegranate beet ketchup.

These days, because it’s so easy to throw a slab of meat or fish on a grill or saute pan and call it dinner, Hazama said vegetables are a way for chefs to show their diversity. His beet ketchup was one of the evening’s highlights. A jar of it came home with us the following day, packed into a lunch box that also featured a Muscovy duck prosciutto sandwich and pickled Ho Farms vegetables.

We finished with an amazing dessert of Big Island Meyer lemon goat cheesecake with dark chocolate aubergine truffle, Kula strawberry and Ho Farms ice cream banana confiture. No one would have guessed that the creamy center of the truffle was eggplant.

The following day, with Hazama at our command in the minivan ride over to Ho Farms, I asked about his relationship to vegetables, because he is one of the few chefs in town able to coax so much out of them. He said he was a weird kid who enjoyed exotic fare like uni and foie gras, and loved almost all vegetables, except beets. (Probably because they came out of a can, as they did for most of us.)

At the farm, following a tour that included eating freshly harvested tomatoes and long beans off the vine, we enjoyed our picnic lunch and Hazama’s demonstration, making the butternut squash soup we were about to enjoy with a topping of sauteed kale, house-cured prosciutto and shimeji mushrooms. Time flew by. Before we knew it, it was 3 p.m. and time to return to town. 

Reservations are being taken for December’s event featuring Naked Cow Dairy Farm and featuring the farm’s cheese, butter and cream.

The menu by chefs Hazama and Brett Villarmia will feature brown butter-seared halloumi (a brined cheese), black cardamom-spiced scallops with lavender buttermilk, garlic- and herb-roasted lamb with labne cheese and pomegranate-pink peppercorn honey butter, an artisanal cheese tasting, and dessert of cookies and milk, including spiced-toasted coconut butter shortbread and smoked Hawaiian sea salt caramel leche.

Reach Nadine Kam at nkam@staradvertiser.com.