college; and a young but established tourist industry; why was
the food so crappy? The answer was to be found in Fiji’s past.
Every country’s local cuisine can be defined by the fusion of
the food from its diverse culture and the influence of other
nations upon the indigenous cuisine. But in Fiji, its history
and culinary development has been very different. Fiji was
never conquered or had its native culture displaced by the
colonising empires of the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French,
German, Japanese, Americans or even the English. Its isolation
from the major spice trading routes; its fierce reputation as
the Cannibal Isles; and its unmapped and deadly reefs kept
many of the conquering empires away from Fiji until well into
the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries. In comparison to
other parts of the world, pre-contact Fiji was a divided nation
of clans fighting and conquering each other whilst the ancient
kingdoms of the old world were forcing their cooks to come up
with something different every day to satisfy the desires of their
rulers. Threatened with death, those cooks ventured far across
the land to find new herbs and spices, plants, nuts, animals and
sea life to include in their kitchens. In Fiji, despite a diverse
mix of Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Indian, Chinese
and European cultures, there has been very little reason or
motivation to experiment with different techniques and flavours
until very recently.
dessert—without care for presentation or flavor combinations
because it is simply and practically seen as just food. For the
uninitiated Fijian not interested in cooking, food is fuel and not
a culinary adventure of textures and flavors. For the local chefs,
struggling to come to grips with the French techniques and
terminology of our craft, their task is made harder with minimal
exposure to Western flavors. Very few can afford to eat out at
the fancy restaurants and resorts that service their clientele. A
meal for two in any of the top establishments is equivalent to
two weeks pay. And without the plethora of television cooking
shows, magazines and celebrity chefs, most of the local chefs
must rely on their tenacity to learn the cultural differences in
food if they are to excel in the industry. Cooking a rare or blue
steak is a case in point. I remember one of my local chefs asking,
“Why do tourists order their steaks half cooked? It’s still got
blood!” Explaining that good meats are wonderfully tender
when cooked underdone, the chef replied, “And I thought we
were the cannibals.”
This presented a new set of challenges in trying to teach a local
workforce to cook like my Australian apprentices and chefs.
How do I gain the quick respect of a local workforce? I’d have
to delve much deeper into their heritage.
As I enjoyed more staff meals of local recipes in my kitchen,
I realized Fijians do not eat or see food in the same way. The
Western concept of meat and three vegetables does not exist,
and a rare or blue steak is completely alien. Their proteins have
always been slow-cooked, well done, whether in the earth
oven, smoked over an open fire, fried or stewed. And cooking
times, presentation, textures and flavors are not always paid
much attention, especially if there is a rugby union game or kava
session in progress.
The huge celebratory feasts are a mass cook-up of unmodified,
wild starches like taro, cassava, sweet potato and breadfruit,
with pigs and chickens thrown into the fire with no seasoning
or marinades. I wondered why the traditional foods are hardly
seasoned until I sat down to my first Fijian meal to discover
bowls of salt, lemon and chilies across the table. Fijians add
the seasoning after cooking, sometimes drowning the food in
excess iodized salt and lemon, whilst intermittently biting the
baby chilies in between mouthfuls of food. With fish and native
greens, bowls of freshly squeezed coconut milk mixed with
onions, tomato, lemon and chilies accompany seafood called
a miti. Whilst certainly tasty, the young cook is challenged to
develop a more refined palate and understanding of portions
and presentation when they go into the real world of resort
kitchens – and very fussy and temperamental tourists to satisfy.
In many of the functions I have attended, food is also simply
piled on top of each other on a plate—sometimes even
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FEBRUARY 2014 • LUXE BEAT MAGAZINE