Cook Islands inmates learning to cook

Transcript

Inmates at Aorangi prison in the Cook Islands have been learning to cook in a bid to upskill and ensure they eat more healthy and local produce when released.

The Cook Islands Tertiary Training Institute's chef, Sam Timoko, has been teaching low-risk inmates who are soon to be released how to prepare local ingredients, and dishes such as lamb shanks and chocolate brownie.

Mr Timoko told Mary Baines that the course was well received by the inmates, one of whom now wants to open his own cafe.

SAM TIMOKO: We cook with lamb shanks, we use a lot of local product as well, local fish which we steamed in banana leaves. Just to get them excited. Everyone here in the Cook Islands or even in Polynesia, they love food, so it's always been a great medium to work with in engaging with anybody really, to get them to get excited about food, perhaps consider it as a career opportunity, or even to sort of like upskill themselves or cook more healthy things at home.

MARY BAINES: So the purpose of the course, is it to upskill people and perhaps have them consider a career in cookery?

ST: Yeah, it has a number of aims really. One of them is for them to consider a career in hospitality, but also so that they cook a lot better at home. Polynesian food over the last 40, 50 years has gone really heavy, you know. So we're focusing on using a lot of fresh local products, we're holding back on the heavy dressings like mayonnaise, stuff like that, and using a lot of vinaigrette based dressings with our dishes.

MB: How many inmates were involved?

ST: There were eight inmates involved in this round. The age range was I believe 17 to about 35 years old. So we had quite a range of ages there. Probably half of them were young kids but we had a couple of older ones in there, who were actually quite keen, well one of them was anyway, quite keen on opening up his own little cafe. He was actually probing me like every five minutes over the four days with regards to different recipes, what things would work on the island. And that was great. It was fantastic, you know, he was turning it into a positive thing.

MB: So a really positive reaction from the inmates, they all really enjoyed it?

ST: Absolutely. One of the inmates who is actually the cook at the prison he was really, really interested. So I took him on board and gave him more of a lead role in learning how to use the other prisoners, work with the other prisoners to get them to do things for him while he's cooking in the kitchen. They have basic products up there, they have rice, noodles, that sort of stuff, cans of corned beef. But it would be a really good idea to make use of the local stuff. Because most of that is free on the island. I mean, everyone has got family here who can provide breadfruit, fresh pawpaws, pineapples and stuff like that. But I would like to go up to the prison and actually cook in their kitchen with what they get every single day.

MB: So that was the first round of it, is there going to be more?

ST: Yeah, we're just working on some dates at the moment with the corrections authority here for me to go up there and work in their kitchen and also look at doing another round back here at the school in probably about six weeks time.