Eloise Knox (left) and Brianna Kinyai (right) in colourful attire. Photo: Nikki Bailey.
It was a celebration of Esperance’s multiculturalism at the Civic Centre on Monday as locals shared their respective heritage through performances, traditional clothing and food.
While mouth-watering aromas wafted through the venue, close to 2,000 hungry patrons tasted delicacies from 32 nations.
‘Taste of the World’ event organiser Divyan Varghese said the idea was to showcase Esperance’s broad diversity, which often remained hidden.
“It’s a taste but it’s more metaphoric of not just food but of culture as a whole,” Mr Varghese said.
“Some of the feedback we get consistently every year is “we didn’t know there were so many different nationalities in Esperance.
“It gives the community a chance to see it exists and how rich this community actually is.”
The event started a few years ago solely as a food festival and though the cuisines were still a large focus, it has merged into a celebration of all aspects of culture.
This year they had traditional dances and singing too and Mr Varghese said there was a large focus on costumes and storytelling.
He said the event highlighted the benefits of diversity, particularily in a regional location.
“Especially in the last year or two there’s been not so pleasant comments on social media about how people might feel [about diversity],” he said.
“The migrant community are in a different country making a living, so the resilience is quite high, and these kinds of issues have an impact.
“I think [the event] is a good platform to create awareness that there’s more benefits than anything else that comes from multiculturalism.”
The participants had a chance to try the tasters before the event officially started and Mr Varghese did not hold back.
“I wish I could say I tried all of it… but I made sure to try one or two from every continent,” he said.
“The shredded beef dish from one of the African nations was pretty good, I tried the fondue from Switzerland and loved that and the lasagne from Italy was great as well.”
“Brazil had some chocolate and condensed milk ball which they made which was really tasty and gooey.”
This year “Taste of the World” partnered with the Esperance Shire events team.
Mr Varghese said although the line was long, it moved quickly and ran much smoother compared to previous years.
He hopes to bring the event to Esperance again next year.
