Latin American Flavours: a new food festival at the Hyatt, Canberra

Thirteen of Canberra's Latin American embassies have joined forces to feed us this September. For the next week or two the Hyatt will host a series of buffet dinners featuring six to eight dishes chosen by each embassy to showcase their country, prepared by executive chef Nitin Kumar and his team in the hotel kitchens. So Brazil is represented with a traditional feijoada - the black bean and beef stew cooked in a claypot. Guatemala and El Salvador are sharing a night and will serve crab with pepita sauce among other dishes.

Mexican ambassador Armando Alvarez says it's all about Latin flavour. "We have flavour in our food, we have flavour in our music, we have flavour in our dances and our culture. It's the Latin way of life," he says. His Cuban counterpart Jose Manuel Galego Montana agrees. "You can have a million dollars in the bank but if you don't have good friends, go to see the dance, the culture, your family, you don't have the good life. You don't have nothing." So, in homage to the good life, Cuba kicks off on Friday, September 11, with a mojito tasting and a Cuban band playing. Argentina's night will involve a tango band and dancers, an Argentinian wine tasting and empanadas.

Colombian ambassador Clemencia Forero-Ucros describes it as a collective work, a collaboration between all the embassies. "Maybe in Australia people think of Latin America as a bloc, they don't differentiate much between the countries. But we are very diverse," she says. "We enjoy life. We have a lot of flavour and we have a rich culture that is yet to be discovered by Australians."

Part of that is the ethnic melting pot - "the African descendants, the Aboriginal, Spain, Portugal, this mixture is the essence of Latin American culture reflected in the food." Forero-Ucros says Colombian cooking is heavily influenced by Africa, Spain and Lebanon. The Colombian dinner features a whole roast pig stuffed with rice, peas, onions and spices and cooked for 10 hours in a clay oven. The Peruvian dinner has a nod to the country's Asian community with lomo saltado: stir fried beef with soy sauce served on a bed of rice with chips. Mexico is flying in a chef, Maria del Carmen Saenz, who will do mole chicken and Mayan pork.

Nitin Kumar and his chefs learnt much from the experience. He pays tribute to Gladys Tenorio, ambassador Alvarez's wife, who brought ingredients from her garden to the Hyatt and was heavily involved in planning menus and testing. A couple of embassies don't have a chef on staff so members of the Latin American community became involved. The Paraguayans called in a home cook from Sydney who came down to Canberra to work with the Hyatt chefs. "She did a tasting with us and she brought some samples and did a couple of dishes with us," Kumar says. She even made a Youtube video translating recipes from Spanish to English. "It was a really good experience for us to learn."

The Latin American Flavours festival runs until September 22 at the Promenade Cafe at the Hyatt Canberra. $69. Dinners are buffets with six to eight dishes. See canberra.park.hyatt.com

Highlights

Cuba: Friday, Sept 11, includes mojito tasting and Cuban band

Peru: Saturday, Sept 12, includes lomo saltado, humitas (traditional steamed corn cakes filled with chicken, spices)

Colombia: Sunday, Sept 13, includes whole roast pig stuffed with rice and spices, plantains pancakes with tomato chutney

Uruguay: Monday, Sept 14, includes matambre relleno (beef with olives and boiled eggs), fish escabeche

El Salvador & Guatemala: Tuesday, Sept 15, includes crab in pepita sauce

Brazil: Wednesday, Sept 16, includes feijoada

Chile: Thursday, Sept 17, includes milcaos (Chilean-style potato pancakes)

Argentina: Friday, Sept 18, includes tango band with dancers from 9pm, Argentinian wine tasting

Paraguay: Saturday, Sept 19, includes asado

Ecuador: Sunday, Sept 20, includes braised pork fritada with plantains, pickled vegetables and corn

Venezuela: Monday Sept 21, includes baked red snapper

Mexico: Tuesday Sept 22, includes Mayan pork, chorizo sopes, mole chicken