Tradition rules: Finding the true taste of the Pacific

A new cooking show aims to educate Pacific Islanders about the dangers of processed Western foods. Kerry Harvey reports.

Renowned Kiwi-born chef Robert Oliver has cooked up what he hopes will be a life-saving recipe for Pacific Islanders.

He is putting his experience on My Kitchen Rules New Zealand to good use with Pacific Island Food Revolution (PIFR), a cooking show aimed at encouraging Pacific Islanders to return to eating traditional foods.

The show is part of an initiative funded by the New Zealand and Australian governments amid concern that the introduction of processed foods is killing people in ‘Pacific Island paradises’.

“In Pacifica there’s a deluge of marketing by the big processed-food companies and it’s powerful stuff,” Oliver says.

“White rice has replaced a lot of the traditional carbohydrate which was far healthier and sugary drinks are everywhere and super cheap.

“In the highest, most remote part of Papua New Guinea, they found a stall selling instant noodles and they just have zero nutrition.

“There’s no shortage of food. There’s just a shortage of food with the right nutrition and a lot of these – we wouldn’t even call them food – have replaced the traditional diet and thereby we have 73 per cent of Pacific people dying of non-communicable diseases (heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure) which are diseases related to the way we eat and live.”

Pacific Island Food Revolution follows 24 cooks from Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa as they turn traditional island foods into prize-winning dishes. Unlike many other TV shows, there is no big prize for the winners – and also none of the nastiness and tantrums viewers have come to expect.

“When you watch MKR and MasterChef, there’s a kind of bitchiness to them that I became uncomfortable with,” Oliver says,

“In Pacifica there’s a deluge of marketing by the big processed-food companies.”

– Robert Oliver

adding he was persuaded it didn’t have to be that way.

“Cindi Lucas, the director of PI Productions which produces PIFR, had worked on MKR and MasterChef for years so she knew the format. She was like, ‘This is a great concept that doesn’t have to be like that and it can be used for social good’, so it was really between her and I that the TV bit got figured out.”

The result is a feel-good series where contestants share many ingredients with opponents and even, at times, pitch in to help each other out.

Pacific Island Food Revolution is a hit in the Islands where it screened this year and the contestants have become famous, with their newfound star power being used to further promote healthy food initiatives.

Many of the contestants have relatives who suffer – and in some cases have died – from lifestyle-related illnesses.

“It often came up on camera so it was always very poignant. If you exclude Papua New Guinea, which is massive, the Pacific is about 12 million people or something so connectivity between people is super high,” he says.

“Everyone knows someone who has had a toe removed (because of diabetes) or has some diet-related issue in their life and it’s just become like a crisis.”

It is a cause close to Oliver’s heart. He grew up in Fiji and Samoa where his parents were social workers.

“We did not have an ex-pat lifestyle. We ate out of the markets and I remember vividly I used to go shopping with my mum. When we arrived there was a wharf strike so there was no western food available so she had to learn how to make local food,” he says, adding his mum appears in the series’ final episode.

Meanwhile, Oliver has already completed filming on the second series and is optimistic a third will be confirmed soon with other Pacific nations clamouring to take part.

“In Vanuatu and PNG, there seems to be a poor understanding that diet is what is making people sick and they’re attributing it to black magic rather than, ‘I should stop eating all this white rice’,” he says.

“This may be a television show but, actually, we hope it’s also a behaviour-change project in terms of what people eat. On our social media there’s lots of, ‘I didn’t know you could do that’ and, ‘We should be doing this’.

“In terms of what they are doing in their homes, I don’t know that yet, but that’s the next part of our journey.

“Often with shows like MKR and MasterChef, you watch the show and that’s it.

“With us, we’ve got all the recipes coming out and we’ve got a communications officer in Fiji who is now putting our social media strategy together because we want people to cook from the show and be well. That’s the end game.”