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Gourmet
on the go. |
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| SPEND
some time chatting with Robert Carmack about his travels and you soon
realise why he chose "the globetrotting gourmet" as his business
moniker.
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| This
is a man who could take you to the brewery where the Japanese emperor's
private soy sauce collection is made, knows the best eatery in Chiang
Mai in Thailand for a khao soi curry or, if you're really feeling adventurous,
he could lead you to a tiny restaurant in rural Vietnam to watch the chef
whip up a meal of multiple courses of cobra. |
But
a desire to eat snake is not a pre-requisite for signing up for one of
Carmack's Asian gourmet tours. All you need is a passion for food –
and for fun. |
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| "We
like to think of it as doing the sorts of things you'd do if you had a
bunch of local friends in the country taking you around," he says. |
| "We
go to food producers, farmers, markets, see how food is grown, we don't
do a bunch of hotel cooking classes. I detest the idea of going to a country
just to do cooking classes every day and then be exhausted because I've
done that – they are really tiring. And they all kind of blur; you
don't really remember any of the dishes. |
| "On
our tours the school is on the street, it's in a restaurant, on the plate,
and then you go and put it together in a classroom, and you can say, 'That's
it, that's what I ate last night'. " |
| Carmack,
50, runs the tours with fellow Globetrotting Gourmet director Morrison
Polkinghorne, 37. Both have food backgrounds and recently wowed the audience
at the Brisbane Masterclass with their knowledge of fish and soy sauces. |
| Carmack
was born in Camas, Washington, on America's northwest coast, and after
studying journalism and briefly flirting with the notion of becoming a
newspaper film critic, headed to France for culinary credentials at the
La Varenne cooking school. |
| Looking
back, he credits his family with fostering his love of gastronomy. |
| "When
I was at university my grandmother would call me and say, 'What do you
want me to cook for you when you come home?' My mother would do the same,"
he recalls. |
| "It
was like they were in competition. My mother would say, 'I'll make you
a cherry pie,' and Grandma would say, 'I'll fry you some chicken. What
else do you want? Apple dumplings?' |
| "Food
was for us a convivial celebration. I still think how wonderful Thanksgiving
is in America because it's like this medieval banquet where everything
is served all at once. You're breaking bread together and it's a wonderful
celebration." |
| Carmack
migrated to Australia in 1987, after working as a food researcher and
editor with the late American food guru James Beard and on the Time-Life
The Good Cook cookbook series. |
| He's
a much in-demand food stylist both in Australia and overseas (he's done
TV commercials for KFC in Beijing and Haagen-Dazs in Japan) and has written
four cookbooks of his own: Fondue!, Desserts with Spirit!, Thai Home Cooking
(with Sompon Nabnian) and the soon-to-be-released Vietnamese Home Cooking. |
| Polkinghorne
is Tasmania-born. He grew up and served his chef's apprenticeship in Alice
Springs before wandering into kitchens in Adelaide and Sydney. |
| While
he's still passionate about cooking ("and eating" he laughs),
he's taken off the apron and pursued his other love for interior design,
weaving and manufacturing 18th century French trimmings. |
| "Cooking
for a career, I realised, was not what I wanted to do," he says.
"So on the food tours we also visit factories and artisan places,
like the silk-weaving village of Pak Thong Chai in Thailand." |
| While
Carmack and Polkinghorne have criss-crossed Asia extensively for nearly
two decades, it was only last year that they decided to formally enter
the burgeoning food tour market. |
| "People
kept coming up and saying to us, 'Where do you go, where do you stay,
what do you like to do?' and while we've organised things before we decided
to bite the bullet and link up with a tour wholesaler," Carmack says. |
| "We
try to make the tours a bit indulgent, so instead of getting off the plane
and being stuffed with a bunch of hotel food, we organise massages for
people to relax, and then get out and do the sort of things you'd do with
a bunch of local friends." |
| They
keep groups to a maximum of about 16, and have learned from experience
that it's best to be on the ground a few days before a group arrives to
iron out any last minute hiccups. |
| "We
had a minor crisis in Thailand last year when the hotel we were supposed
to be staying in we found had just become a dump," Carmack recalls. |
| "So
we found another one that was opening the next day and I said to them,
'Great, we'll be the first group in your hotel.' They said 'No, no, we're
sold out,' and I said 'We'll pay cash,' and they said "OK, done.'
Money talks." |
| Robert
Carmack and Morrison Polkinghorne's upcoming Globetrotting Gourmet food
tours include Bali (from August 30), Thailand (October 31) and Vietnam
(March 28, next year). Visit www.asianfoodtours.com
or contact San Michele Travel (Australia only) 1800 222 244.
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