Holiday Rumaki

Thin-cut bacon works better than thick - it crisps more evenly and wraps easier. Using a wire rack is essential for all-around crispiness. The glaze creates a lacquered finish that's irresistible. For authentic Trader Vic's style, marinate water chestnuts overnight in soy sauce and ginger.

Rumaki is one of the defining appetizers of American mid-century tiki culture, and its origin places it precisely at the intersection of two foundational figures of that movement. Wikipedia confirms the earliest documented reference to rumaki appears on a 1941 menu from Don the Beachcomber's restaurant in Palm Springs — Donn Beach (Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt) having opened the original Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood in 1934 and pioneered the American tiki restaurant concept. The dish was subsequently popularized through Trader Vic's, the chain founded by Victor Bergeron in Oakland in 1934, which became the dominant force in tiki dining from the 1940s through the 1960s. Bergeron claimed the recipe had Chinese origins via Hawaii; food historians consider it an American invention. The name "rumaki" may derive from the Japanese harumaki (spring roll), fitting the tiki tradition of invented faux-Asian nomenclature. The classic combination — chicken livers and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, marinated in soy sauce and ginger — blends an American protein (bacon), an Asian pantry staple (water chestnut), and a soy-sesame flavor profile that was entirely novel to American party-goers in the 1940s. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, rumaki became a fixture at suburban cocktail parties, holiday gatherings, and the "pu pu platter" of Chinese-American restaurants that adopted it. The liver-free version — just bacon and water chestnuts — remains common for guests who prefer a milder flavor.