World's Best Cookbook Author Puts In A Good Word For NZ Beef

World's Best Cookbook Author Puts In A Good Word For NZ Beef

Who better to introduce Korean foodies to some of the world's best beef than the author of the world's best cookbook?

Fresh from winning the premium accolade at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris, Kiwi-born chef and food writer Robert Oliver took to the grills in Seoul recently to bring Koreans a taste of his home country.

The author of Me'a Kai: The Food and Flavours of the South Pacific teamed up with Beef +Lamb New Zealand for two separate promotions demonstrating the merits of grass-fed New Zealand beef - cooking for some of Korea's leading food bloggers at an invitation-only lunch, as well as for cooking students at one of the country's top culinary institutes.

South Korea has a remarkably high number of food bloggers with large followings, whose authoritative posts on all things culinary are lapped up by local gastronomes.

Bloggers at the B+LNZ-hosted lunch embraced the opportunity to taste for themselves the difference between grain- and grass-fed beef, as well as to get cooking tips from the chef himself.

Since the lunch there have been a number of positive blogs featuring New Zealand grass-fed beef, reporting it to be juicy and tender.

Robert Oliver also took the time to show a group of the country's future chefs how to prepare grass-fed beef, in a lively cooking demonstration peppered with questions from eager students.

They clearly enjoyed the experience, with one of the participants commenting that it was a very welcome opportunity to learn about cooking an unfamiliar product and to be able to hear the views of a chef with extensive international experience.

As was the case with the bloggers, very few of the students had previously encountered grass-fed beef, with their beef knowledge confined to the grain-fed beef more commonly eaten in Korea. Commenting on the two promotions which B+LNZ undertook in Seoul in tandem with Robert Oliver, John Hundleby stated that "although the two activities focused on very different targets, the reaction to grass-fed beef from both groups was very positive.

"The fact that Robert Oliver's cookbook had won the Gourmand award certainly heightened his credibility in the attendees' eyes and they sought to explore quite extensively his views of cooking with grass-fed beef.

"As well as having an immediate impact in terms of a good number of bloggers' reports on the luncheon and media coverage of the cooking demonstration, we expect an ongoing impact from both the bloggers and the culinary institute's students, with both of the groups effectively having had their eyes opened to the merits of grass-fed beef through the two activities."

Robert Oliver was in Korea at the invitation of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. ends

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