Garnishing the chops

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 12

Garnishing the chops

Take a brace of juicy lamb chops. Garnish, decorate, and serve with a display of freshly presented vegetables. The result is a meal that can be served in a New Zealand restaurant to visitors to this country. This, surely, is the ultimate success in adding value by processing the country’s raw materials at home.

Best of all, the meal (and thousands like it) can become an export without ever leaving the country. Each time a tourist eats such a meal, New Zealand’s foreign exchange increases a little. Each time a tourist enjoys such a meal, and seeks out another, or tells friends back home about it, the prospects for New Zealand’s earnings are improved. The difficult job is to persuade tourists to come to New Zealand in the first place; to persuade them to pay the freight on themselves so that they can eat an export that need never leave New Zealand. If the food is good enough, however, visitors will come to seek it out. These are hardly new thoughts, but they deserve to be taken out and refurbished from time to time. The standard of meals in New Zealand restaurants and hotels has improved markedly in the last 20 years or so. Much more attention is given to using local ingredients and to promoting them with pride. At its best, New Zealand food is very good and can be rather special. Maintaining the standard, improving it where possible, needs constant care. This depends on the energy and imagination, and the manners, of thousands of chefs and catering staff throughout the country. They are at the front line in the important business of processing and converting to foreign exchange the raw materials from New Zealand’s farms.

Two events at the week-end suggest that the worth of New Zealand foods, and beverages, is being taken more seriously — even if the process leads to a lot of fun. The Marlborough Wine and Food Festival in Blenheim was a munching and supping success, enjoyed by thousands of people. In Queenstown, the Minister of Tourism, Mr Goff, launched a “Taste New Zealand” campaign intended to remind local people as well as visitors of the high quality of the best New Zealand foods. Such efforts deserve support; their success will be measured over months and years in the manner in which meals for visitors are prepared and presented. A word of warning is in order. Selling attractive local foods to tourists is a splendid way of making good use of New Zealand products and labour. Pricing the meals too highly is stupid. In these days of exchange rate complications, visitors from abroad, and especially from North America or Australia, are not golden geese to be plucked without a care. Already, food prices in some parts of the country are high enough to deter all but the most affluent tourists, let alone the locals who also deserve to be able to enjoy the best of what this country has to offer. A dish of lamb cutlets that costs as much as a sheep may be fair enough, if the surroundings and service measure up. A steak meal that looks as expensive as a side of beef would be carrying things too far. New Zealand’s reputation as a home of splendid foods continues to grow. If it is matched by a reputation for reasonably priced foods, that could be a useful step towards a lasting economic recovery.