Food brings tourists

By PETER ESILA
THE local cuisine of any country is part of the tourism package to lure more visitors, a chef says.
And celebrity chef Robert Oliver urged Papua New Guinea to develop its cuisine for the same reason.
Oliver told the national coffee symposium in Port Moresby last week that the local cuisine had the potential of developing the economy.
He said everyone loved food, and PNG which had been blessed with its biodiversity and rich culture, had much to offer on the “tourism plate”.
Oliver is a New Zealand chef raised in Fiji and Samoa. His name is linked to restaurants in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Sydney.
He is also connected to “farm to table” resorts in the Caribbean and food programmes feeding homeless people and African immigrants suffering from HIV-AIDS in New York.
Oliver is the author of the award winning cookbook Me’a Kai: The Food and Flavours of the South Pacific.
He is presently the executive director and host of Pacific Island Food Revolution, a TV series that champions Pacific cuisine.