Nepal Opens Food Culture to the World

In a move to promote Nepal’s food culture across the world, Nepal’s hospitality industry on Monday launched a cook book and videos of 30 Nepal food items prepared by expert chefs, under the campaign. “Globalizing Nepal Heritage Cuisine”. In view of this initiative an event was organized and live streamlined. This is the first ever campaign initiated by the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) under a PPP model.

At the occasion of the cuisine display and tasting in Kathmandu, Nepali Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari launched the book and videos that contain Nepali food recipe with information on all ingredients and cooking methods.

Traditional Nepali Cuisines

Visitors were welcomed to an assortment of traditional Nepali cuisines from around 200 food categories selected from different Nepali communities. Among the vast array, there were dishes like the Kwati, Sisne Jhol, Phando, Jwano ko Jhol, Pancha Kwa, Chukur Khanda, Karesabari, Chukauni, Timure Aalu, Fulaura, Sekuwa, Sandheko, Tareko, Usineko, Pakku, Chhoyla, Momo, Chatanmari, Wo, Jogi Bhat, Dal Bhat, Dhindo, Himali, Yomari, Sikarni and Dahiphal.

The event aimed at regaining the lost glory of Nepal’s diverse food culture. Stating the importance of this step, Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of NTB said, “This is an exemplary event under the PPP model. We should tell the world that Nepal has varieties of foods.”

As per HAN, the Government’s Department of Food Technology and Quality has tested and certified the selected food items.

Expressing the government’s support to the campaign, Tourism Minister, Rabindra Adhikari said,” Gastronomy tourism is a new product. Although it’s late, we have at least started the campaign to globalize our dishes.”

Globalize Nepali Food

According to Senior Tourism entrepreneur Karna Sakya, the work to globalize Nepali foods had started 7 months ago. He said, “This campaign should have started a long time ago, but it didn’t,” “We have lost our diverse dishes as we didn’t deem it necessary to promote them. But still, we can publicize gastronomy tourism.”

Further quoting statistics he said, there are more than 1,000 Nepali restaurants across the world, and around 4,000 chefs working in different hotels and restaurants across the world. “But still, we have failed to promote our foods.”

This move is a part of the NTB’s ongoing initiative to promote Gastronomy tourism under the theme, ‘Experience Nepal: Cuisine & Culture’.

According to the International Culinary Tourism Association, food travelers spend around $1,200 per trip on average, with over one-third ($425) of their travel budget going towards food-related activities.