Food and culture in the neighbourhood – a culinary love letter from the South Pacific

Our near neighbours in the vast Pacific are often overlooked by Australia in its slavish focus on America, Britain and Europe – yet this is our own backyard. The lack of knowledge has ranged across many aspects of the culture and history of the Pacific, including its culinary traditions. Yet, behind the scenes over more than a decade, a culinary revolution has been underway. This is the story of New Zealand chef, Robert Oliver, his fascination with the traditional food of the Pacific Islands, and an internationally award-winning cookbook, described as a ‘culinary love letter from a smattering of islands in the South Pacific’, which has developed a life of its own.

For a while it seemed that our neighbours in the vast Pacific might have once again been overlooked – this time in a good way, as COVID-19 initially failed to get a grip in the region. Unfortunately these hopes are increasingly being dashed as the risks of trade routes reassert their place in daily life.

Extracting coconut from the shell the traditional way on Moorea Island, Tahiti.

Despite being Australia’s nearest neighbours, in effect our own backyard, being overlooked has been a frequent occurrence with the region. This has been the case with many aspects of its culture and history, including its culinary traditions.

A long and enthralling story
However, there have been notable exceptions. This is a long story – and an enthralling one – about a food revolution across the vast Pacific Ocean and its many and varied peoples that still has a long way to run. Back in December 2016 I posted an article to my Facebook page, ‘tableland’, which is complementary to this blog, and like it is about food, farming and cooking. The article was about the story of New Zealand chef, Robert Oliver, and his fascination with the traditional food of the Pacific Islands. Then I thought no more of it – until a few weeks ago, when I discovered the story had a new chapter, possibly several new chapters.

This story is about an overlooked wealth of cultures, dispersed across a massive ocean – and a cuisine that they produced. It centres on a fascinating award-winning cookbook of Pacific Island cuisine I stumbled across many years back – ‘Me'a Kai: The Food and Flavours of the South Pacific’, by Robert Oliver. While this subject is not about the Canberra region, it is about the wider Pacific region we inhabit and about cooking and culture and locality that is is highly relevant to Australians.

Pacific food revolution
A while back I noticed by chance that there was a program on SBS called Pacific island food revolution. It was an expression of all those culinary currents, highlighted by Robert Oliver in his book way back in 2010, coming to fruition. There was a host of people on board the program and it seemed to have travelled a long way across a vast region. Long and far may it continue to sail.

My interest in the long overlooked Pacific – Australia's own back yard – was renewed by a trip to the North Island of New Zealand at the end of 2016. Back in September 2015 I had ripped an article by Susan Chenery from the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ Good Weekend magazine and put it in a pile to read. Usually, with the decline of the mainstream media, I struggle to find enough good articles to keep me occupied but, strangely, it took a year for me to rediscover and read this one.

Not even a cuisine
I have long had a fascination with the Pacific, Australia’s local region, and the article celebrates Robert Oliver's cookbook, described as a ‘culinary love letter from a smattering of islands in the South Pacific’. It won the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2010 against some heavy competition – ‘The Essential New York Times Cookbook’, and another from Noma, renowned at the time as the word’s best restaurant.

As the original Herald commented, ‘Never before had such an exalted prize been won by such a humble book. Until then, for example, Samoan food, cooked on hot stones in fire pits, hadn’t even been considered cuisine.’

History happened elsewhere

Robert Oliver's long fascination with these traditional food of the Pacific is a story of colonialism and the relationship of food to culture, economic and social development and self-sufficiency.

It’s a story which echoes Australia’s own history, because for centuries, history happened elsewhere, on the other side of the world. Australia – and the Pacific – was seen as being the end of the earth, an undiscovered continent and then a mere colonial outpost.

I managed to get a copy of the book itself - thanks to Australian online book seller, Booktopia - and I've even tried one of its recipes, the poisson cru tahitienne, a classic Tahiti dish using raw fish, lime juice and coconut milk. I liked it - and it was not too dissimilar to the version I had in Tahiti - though at the time, I found it a bit bland.

Cyclone seasons and organic farms
It's one of the things I found when I travelled to Fiji for a regional UNESCO meeting on the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2007. It was a heightened time, as Christmas approached and the cyclone season loomed. At home the segment of the public service responsible for arts and culture was being cut loose yet again – like an abandoned space shuttle – and moved to a new department.

Sent into the Pacific, I needed to eat, so in between UNESCO sessions with representatives from all the South Pacific Islands – including New Zealand and Australia – I worked my way through some of the local dishes. I found myself gravitating to the spicier dishes of Indian origin, rather than the traditional Pacific dishes. However, I see from my new cookbook that there are many spices used in Pacific cuisine - coriander, cardamon, pepper, ginger, chilli, basil – and that's without the further additions originating from Pacific Islanders of Indian or Chinese background.

At the heart of the cuisine seems to be the quality of the produce. The community campaign to grow organic and move away from ingredients like canned corned beef, introduced by the Americans after the Second World War, reflects this. The quality of the cusine and the produce on which it depends is central to strategies to use tourism as a basis to generate greater community income.

With the range of tropical produce distinctive to the region, the opportunities to experiment are many. Mango – as Oliver comments, ‘when the mango season hits, it hits hard’ – paw paw, banana, coconut in every shape and form, plantain, cumquat – used like lemons – pineapple, and fresh seafood of every kind are all part of the mix.

Over the years since discovering this unexpected cookbook I've kept doing my bit, trying my hand with my copy of this culinary love letter from the South Pacific, checking out a whole new world of cooking and a near neighbourhood worthy of greater discovery.

See also

The island to the North – the islands to the North East
‘The awkward relationship between Tasmania and the island to the North is not the only clumsy relationship between islands in this part of the world. The history of the ties between the island to the North and the islands of the Pacific is even more troubled’, The island to the North – the islands to the North East.

Ignoring the neighbours - why our backyard matters
'My trip to Tahiti last year reminded me of the large issues swirling around the Pacific and of how uneven the relationship between Australia and the region has been. It threw up lots of issues about how local cultures adapt to the globalised economy. Producing artwork and performances for the tourist market is problematical. Yet it's also the fate of Australian culture generally. Is it swimming against the tide for all of us?' Ignoring the neighbours - why our backyard matters.

A navigator on a Lancaster bomber

‘Sometimes I think Australia has lost its way. It’s like a ship that has sailed into the vast Pacific Ocean in search of gaudy treasure, glimpsed the beckoning coast of Asia and then lost its bearings, all its charts blown overboard in squalls and tempests. It seems to have turned from the great nation-building vision of the period after World War 2, with its sense of optimism and fairness, towards something much more pinched and narrow. It’s time to rediscover the Australian dream. We need a navigator – or perhaps many, one in every community – who can help us find our way, encourage us as we navigate from greed and complacency to a calmer shining ocean of generosity and optimism’, A navigator on a Lancaster bomber.

In search of wild mushrooms
‘Growing up in the Central Highlands of Tasmania, foraging for wild mushrooms was a regular part of life. Now living in Canberra, a landscape markedly similar to where I grew up, mushrooms have an altogether more deadly reputation. However, it all comes down to specialist knowledge about the subject, as I discovered on a chilly evening with one of Canberra’s mushrooming experts’, In search of wild mushrooms. 

 The Asian food century begins in Sydney
‘Almost ten years ago much fuss was made of the rapidly looming Asian Century, full of challenge and promise. I was working in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time as Director of the National Cultural Policy Task Force. The discussion White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century being developed at the same time seemed part of a similar big picture approach to Australia's future. Today it seems even more relevant than in those times of more strategic governments. In Sydney you get a much sharper sense of the Asian Century – and its culinary reflection, the Asian food century’, The Asian food century begins in Sydney.

In a corner with a cake (or two) – the hidden attraction of local hangouts

‘Tucked away in a corner at the Ainslie shops where it’s easy to miss entirely ­– in the heart of the suburb know as the Red Centre for it’s exceptionally high Labor vote – is an unexpected delight. The location has hosted a series of less than successful ventures but this most recent has been an unqualified success. Who would have thought that a cafe hailing from Brittany could attract such a crowd. The secret of success is that it focuses on what it does and it does it well. You can park yourself inside the small venue or outside if the weather is fine and pick from some unexpected sweet pastries, throw down the odd glass of French wine or eat buckwheat pancakes or baguettes. The cafe also runs to daily specials that can be very unexpected. Long may it reign over us – Rule Brittany rather than Rule Britannia’, In a corner with a cake (or two) – the hidden attraction of local hangouts.

We all scream for icecream – cooling down in a cold climate with Frugii
‘I realise I may have just become a statistic. I have a suspicion that I have eaten more sorbet, gelato and icecream since local Canberra icecream outlet Frugii opened in Canberra’s Braddon perimeter than I have eaten in my whole previous life. Tucked away in hipster heaven, it keeps churning out flavours, in an ever changing smorgasbord of coldness’, We all scream for icecream – cooling down in a cold climate with Frugii.

A bustling Friday night in hipster heaven
‘On a bustling Friday night in hipster heaven, I popped into my favourite Canberra restaurant, Italian and Sons, planning for little more than a quick bite to eat. I managed to get my favourite spot – when I’m not settled comfortably in Bacaro, the adjoining bar out the back, that is – sitting in the window, watching the action on the street. I headed straight for a real blast from my Adelaide past, part of my earliest discovery of Italian cuisine – saltimbocca. Then I beat a path down Lonsdale Street to Frugii, Canberra’s own dessert laboratory. What is happening to this city? It’s getting cooler by the minute and it’s not just the icecream or the approach of winter’, A bustling Friday night in hipster heaven.

Peas in a pod – food takes off
‘Pod Food is in the heart of the slightly ramshackle gardening and nursery hub of Canberra, Pialligo , adjacent to the burgeoning exercise in urban growth called Canberra Airport. It was always the place you went to get large pots and even larger apples. Pod Food was always good enough – but now it is something a whole lot more impressive. On a rainy Friday I entered through their marvellous cottage garden entrance way to sit on the covered and contained outside deck. The entrance to Pod Food, formerly part of an operating nursery, is the sort of garden I eventually want to have. It felt highly suitable sitting at the entrance to the Australian high country as the rain came down, drinking the fine product of another high region on the opposite side of the world’, Peas in a pod – food takes off.

Vitello Tonnato for a life well lived in hipster heaven
‘It had been quite a week and I had been crushed by too many encounters with the crazy world of Centrelink as I fulfilled my long list of aged care responsibilities. I needed cheering up so last night ate out at the venerable Italian and Sons, the very first of the many funky venues which now enliven Braddon. My attention was drawn to the rare appearance of vitello tonnato. My imagination had been captured decades ago when I was a young boy by seeing the recipe for the dish in Margaret Fulton’s classic cookbook. I finally tried it in a tiny restaurant in Florence, during my first visit overseas, after a stint at the massive Frankfurt Book Fair in 1989. This most recent one was the best I have ever eaten outside my own home – well, perhaps the best anywhere. This is a favourite place, probably my most favourite in Canberra. Coming here always makes me feel happy and what more can you ask?’, Vitello Tonnato for a life well lived in hipster heaven.

Eating out in a cold, funky city – Canberra comes of age in the Asian Century
‘On a day and night which was bitterly cold – as cold as Canberra has been this year, with the hint of snow clouds overhead – I was reminded why I live here. As we wandered along after a full day of cultural institutions and design events, looking for somewhere to eat we impetuously popped into Restaurant Eightysix and even more impetuously were able to get a table. I had forgotten reading somewhere that famed long-former Adelaide chef, Christine Manfield was here for the month, cooking up an Asian-inspired menu. How much better could it get?’, Eating out in a cold, funky city – Canberra comes of age in the Asian Century.

Smoking for broke beside the Molongolo
‘Where the market gardens that supplied Canberra as far back as the 1820s used to be a small fortune has been spent turning 86 acres overlooking the Eastern end of Lake Burley Griffin into a superb regional restaurant, Pialligo Estate Farmhouse Restaurant. It made for a tremendous birthday lunch in a spacious airy and light space, full of exciting food treated well. I couldn’t take my eyes off the copper guttering and downpipes. I thought all the loose copper in the world had already been stolen but clearly it’s still available. It’s quite clear that even though work is still being finalised, when it is finished it will be a spectacular addition to the nation’s capital and the region’, Smoking for broke beside the Molongolo.

Provenance - knowing where good things come from
‘It took me only five years but I finally found my way to Provenance, the legendary regional restaurant established by chef Michael Ryan in Beechworth in 2010. Provenance is widely considered one of the best restaurants in regional Victoria, in a tiny state that contains many good regional restaurants. I had been meaning to eat there since it was established and given how regularly we travel to Beechworth and its surrounds I was amazed I hadn’t been earlier. It took some time but it was worth it’, Provenance - knowing where good things come from.