14 February 2011 Planning Manager cooks up a storm

When Planning Manager Tracy Berno isn’t cooking up the next big thing for Lincoln University, she’s literally cooking up something seriously delicious.

Tracy has co-authored a cookbook called Me’a Kai: The Food and Flavours of the South Pacific , which has been named New Zealand Best Book of the Year 2010 and Best Foreign Book (New Zealand) in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

The book has also been named one of four finalists for Best Book of the Year  in the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, to be announced in Paris early next month.

Me’a Kai celebrates six South Pacific nations, their culture, cooking and celebrations and Tracy says it is much more than a cookbook.

“The book is an outcome of a research project I worked on in the Pacific,” she says. “Two of the issues identified in the research included the need to highlight the food of the Pacific in a way that would appeal to the tourist palate and the need for a resource, such as a cookbook, to communicate this.

“Robert Oliver and I put the book together to remind South Pacific cooks their food is as good as any,” she says. “We want to improve the quality of food offered to the South pacific regions tourism market, so the demand for the food is increased and rural prosperity grows as a result. The book is underpinned by a philosophy of sustainable tourism, sustainable agriculture and sustainable cuisine. ”

Tracy says the book is already being used in cookery training, as well as the basis for a recent promotion of tourism and trade between New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

“The book is a unique partnership between a chef, an academic and a photographer who share a passion for the people, cultures and food of the South Pacific. That has been very rewarding in itself, so having the book acknowledged around the world is stunning.”

A total of 154 countries entered books in 53 categories in the awards and Me’a Kai is up against some stiff competition. The other three finalists are NOMA by Rene Redzepi, The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser and Natura Kuchini Polskie by Wojciech Modest Amaro.

“To be in competition against NOMA – one of the most talked about cookbooks of the year, by a chef who is widely believed to be the greatest chef in the world at the moment – is just astounding,” says Me’a Kai publisher Nicola Legat of Random House New Zealand. “Not to mention the fact that the New York Times Cookbook is an instant classic, a truly remarkable book.”

Tracy says her background as an academic definitely had a role to play in the cookbook. Her participation in the book is the outcome of an agriculture and tourism linkage project she worked on in the South Pacific. The same project is the basis of a chapter in an academic publication due out later this year.

You can buy a copy of Me'a Kai online at Whitcoulls