Canberra's Multicultural Food Festival

Dot and I recently drove to Canberra to be with Bec and Max for several days. They developed a fascinating program for our stay, including three spectacular events that make up three consecutive blog posts. The first was our attending the city's multi-cultural food festival, which was enormous in terms of nations represented, the variety of domestic foods they offered, street and stage performances, the vast crowd of people attending, and the area covered by stalls and stages.

Our first impressions upon arrival mid-morning on Saturday were informed by the vast space of 'Civic' - Canberra's main commercial district - taken up by the various food stalls

And the massive range of foods available also rapidly became apparent. For example, I was taken by the Jordanian and Ethiopian cuisines shown here. How many of my readers have ever tasted these foods? Here's a picture of me enjoying the task of prowling around the stalls with Dot, Bec and Max in tow.

Two more unusual food stalls then came into view, representing the United Arab Emirates and Serbia!

And then I saw a stall, below, inviting one to taste Colombian food, an invite that I accepted - yummy!

How about trying some food from Botswana or Korea? By the time I saw these stalls, I had eaten quite a lot, including some from Iran. I wonder if I am about to get Coronavirus!!

Then I saw stalls serving food from Egypt and Lebanon.

That's enough about food. Equally interesting were the 'street performances'. These butterflies, or possibly beetles, attracted much attention.

Performers like these played instruments and music from their home countries, in this case South America.

And this choir seemed to be singing Christian music while, alongside the Korean food dispensary we heard some of that nation's famous drumming.







This drumming reminded me of a lovely drumming ceremony I attended long ago at a Buddhist monastery in southern Korea.

Then on a nearby stage we came across cultural performances from the Pacific region, including - if I recall correctly - New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Samoa.

Finally, we wound up at a street performance provided by the Hare Krishna movement founded in New York in 1966. It's a branch of Hinduism and was formed to spread the practice of Bhakti Yoga and the love of God. So, we sat in silence while a group of young people chanted Hare Krishna for about 15 minutes ... perhaps not the best use of my time!

While listening to the repetitive chants, I discovered something I'd not observed before. While Britain contrived to exit the European Union, the youngster in front of me came up with hat that informed me that the EU was in the process of infiltrating Australia!!

And I have one final image to report. While most foods were prepared and dispensed in the stalls I have shown repeatedly, one provider came up with an up-market way of dispensing food. Tale a look at this massive limo whose side unfolds to act as a stove.

 Some nations must have a lot of spare cash!

AS