1 April 2011

INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL FESTIVAL

I'm pleased I went to the Auckland International Cultural Festival on Sunday. Despite damp weather, it was incredibly heart warming to see so many cultures on display in one large site in Mt Roskill. More than 40 countries were represented in a day long celebration of music, dance, crafts, sport and food.

A country or region's cuisine has always been at the heart of every culture and it is something that transcends border changes, emigration and relocation. When people are displaced it is comforting to see that they take comfort in cooking up the treats and the everyday meals they grew up on in their homeland. It's also the way they can often make an income when jobs are not easy to come by.

There was so much pride on display and a wonderful ambient feeling of cameraderie and friendship in both the music and the food of so many different people.

Some of the higlights for me were the amazing Ethiopan coffee, brewed on site and served in delicate little china cups, the aromatic baking of the Finnish people, the tiny dim sum of the China Society, the Serbian breads, an array of Somalian dishes, sweet Indian treats, our own Maori Rewana bread, Croatian pies, delicious and unusual food from the Karen Society repreesnting Burma, and so much more.

In the Malaysian Pavilion a host of specialties were cooked by local Malaysian restaurants, and their Trade Commissioner, Mr Md Shaiful Md Sharif had flown in specially from Sydney to support his country. (The tireless Auckland mayor Len Brown was there too.) Jacky from KK's was cooking his satay with a lovely sauce (pictured above) and I took a bag full of other delicious Malaysian curries from A Taste of Malaysia and Sri Puteri restaurants so the festival continued at home for me.