There’s something rather lovely about starting a Sunday morning talking about food, particularly when the conversation takes you all the way to Fiji. Arrnott Olssen was in Sydney, coffee in hand, still recovering from the previous day’s Fiji Day celebrations and a very generous helping of lovo, the traditional Fijian feast cooked in an earth oven. It seemed a fitting place to begin. Arrnott has had a fascinating career, from Popstars to My Kitchen Rules, but it was his childhood memories of food that I found particularly captivating. Growing up in Suva with his brother and their single mother, he remembers her remarkable ability to make something out of very little. Since losing her, those flavours have become an important connection to his past. Through The Kana Club, Arrnott is now sharing the food of his childhood, reinterpreting traditional dishes and encouraging people to discover Fiji beyond its beaches. We talked about family, music, identity and his ambitions for Fijian cuisine. A thoroughly lovely way to spend a Sunday morning.
Hi Arrnott. Happy Fiji Day for yesterday.
I was at the Fiji Day celebrations during the day and an event last night. I was saying to someone, I don’t drink anymore, but being in the sun all day made me feel like I’d been partying all night.
There were lots of people there?
Lots of people, lots of food. I did an interview and sang a song in Liverpool. There aren’t many Fijian restaurants in Sydney, but one that recently opened in Alexandria hosted an anniversary dinner last night. They opened on October 10 last year. I think it was probably all the food I ate yesterday too. It’s the food you can’t get all the time. Lovo, the earth oven, isn’t an everyday thing. Yesterday we drove out and I got a $120 lovo pack with chicken, pork and dalo. It was amazing.
Is that a bit like a New Zealand hāngī? Do you dig it into the ground?
It’s very similar. They dig a pit, pile up stones and burn logs over them. Then they remove the logs so the food cooks from the heat of the stones. They split coconut branches into long strips and lay them over the stones so the food doesn’t sit directly on the heat. They make little baskets from coconut leaves to wrap the pork or chicken, then cover them with more leaves. Nowadays we use potato sacks too, cover everything with earth and leave it for about eight hours. The meat falls off the bone and the smoke in that chicken is like no other. Sorry, I’m talking about food so early in the morning.
Delicious. How often would people in Fiji have that? Is it a special occasion thing?
Special occasions. Not everyone has a lovo pit in their backyard, so the family member who does becomes the designated host. Everyone else gets a job. Someone might be in charge of the pork or chicken, or the palusami, which is taro leaves wrapped around coconut cream. Sometimes they’ll add corned beef to it. Or you’re in charge of kakalandina, which is like taro or sweet potato. We’ll find a reason for a lovo on any occasion. I’m talking to a publishing company about a cookbook, and we were discussing the Fijian concept of mai kana, which means everyone is welcome. If you’re walking past someone’s house and you hear someone say, mai kana, that means they’re inviting you to come and eat. It’s not an empty invitation. If you went in, you’d be served. Sometimes when I was a kid, I would just say to my mum, should I try? Should I go in and try? My mum would say, ‘Behave yourself.’
There’s always a reason to eat lovo in Fiji. When I was a kid, I remember, if there’s a funeral, you’ll do a lovo. If there’s a wedding, you’ll do a lovo. A birthday, you have a lovo. There is always a reason to feast or enjoy. If you’re feasting, everyone else is welcome too. That’s what makes it enjoyable: having people around.
Is that where the name The Kana Club comes from?
Kana means ‘eat’, so it’s the eating club. I love eating! When we were thinking of a name, mai kana felt too literal, so I thought, The Kana Club.
I didn’t end up going to TAFE. But I still devoured everything and I’d cook at home and I’d practise and I’d watch videos and devour cooking shows like crazy. When the internet allowed us to see the rest of the world, I did that as well. I would have loved to have gone and learned at TAFE, but I think I’ve got a very curious mind and I look back and I learn from a lot of old recipes. I love old cookbooks. Some of the recipes and suggestions are so interesting. I think we forget sometimes to look back.
Arrnott Lawson, The Kana Club
What are some memories that you have growing up in Suva of eating and cooking? Did you cook with your mum as well?
Definitely. My mum was a single mum, so she taught us very young. I learned at about six. My brother Earl started even earlier, at four or five, because my mum said, if I’m sick, at least you know the basics, how to put on some rice, how to fry an egg, little things you can do if I’m not feeling well. She also said, when you grow up and have wives, you need to cook for them, not just have them cook for you. We learned pretty young. We didn’t have a lot of money. A lot of my food memories are about how she could create something out of nothing. I take my hat off to mums everywhere. They have this ability to hide the struggle. We might have had $5 left, but we’d never have known. She never let on, and it always seemed like we had more than we did. I remember being such a little shit sometimes, saying, ‘I don’t want to eat that.’ Mum would say, ‘Well, there’s nothing else. You can take yourself to bed if you want.’ I’d quickly change my mind and eat whatever it was. There were these key memories growing up. We had one KFC in Suva. A few years after it opened, there must have been a licensing issue with the KFC brand, because it became Wishbone Chicken. We’d go into KFC with our own wholemeal buns. Mum would say, ‘This is healthier. We’ll get the corn on the cob and the salad.’ She’d save up so we could have a little treat. The Chinese had been in Fiji for a very long time before the Europeans came. They were there for the gold. We love Chinese food in Fiji. There was a little cafe and we love our tea in Fiji. I think that’s left over from the British being there. So you’d get a big mug of tea, in almost like a bowl. And they’d make these massive Chinese steamed buns filled with BBQ pork. I remember it’d be warm and you’d pull it apart and then put the slices of pork in the middle. My memory of that was amazing. I remember when I first came to Australia and I went and bought a BBQ pork bun and I pulled it apart and I thought, where’s the pork pieces? it’s not the same. Those are the little memories. Or sometimes on our birthday, she’d make us her special chop suey. I did a reel recently and I shared the recipe. She’d get a small piece of chicken, a little bit of pork, a little bit of beef, and she’d marinate it in dark mushroom soy sauce, the Pearl brand. brown sugar, crushed garlic and ginger, Then she’d cook it all separately. She’d slice the beans with a razor blade, and we’d have beans, French beans, celery, And capsicum, which we don’t normally, because, capsicum and celery were a bit of an expensive vegetable. Cabbage was fine because that was cheap. You could get cabbage for 20 cents a bundle back then and she’d make this massive pot of chop suey with vermicelli noodles, Then she’d add toasted cashew nuts on the top. We’d have that for maybe two or three days because it would last for a long time.We thought it was the best birthday ever. But it’s those little memories. I think what I remember are the flavours from then. That’s what keeps me chasing flavours now.
You went on to explore cooking through My Kitchen Rules and other projects. Did you need to learn particular techniques or skills to take that next step?
Even as a kid, I’d go to the library and borrow recipe books. Mum used to tease me about it. I’d take them home and say, ‘Can we do roast goose for Christmas?’ Mum would say, “Where are we getting a goose from?” Or I remember when I went to an aunt’s place and had bolognese for the first time, because we didn’t have a lot of other cultural restaurants in Fiji. There was pizza, there was Chinese. I learned about other food cultures a lot from church. We’d meet new people. We became really close to an English lady that went to our church. My love of green apples and cheddar cheese comes from going to her house. she cut up the green apples and I thought this was the most amazing flavour combo.
I’d go to the library and I’d get books on technique. I would devour anything. When I came to Australia, right now in front of me is a massive tower of cookbooks that I used to collect from vintage stores. I’d go to thrift stores and I’d just absorb. In the early 2000s, I wanted to go to TAFE and study to be a chef. For a year, I worked at a company that made all the dough that went out to the restaurants. We made all the sauces, all the dips. Over that year, I lost my love of cooking after working in a restaurant underneath a chef who was one of the worst bosses. I didn’t end up going to TAFE, but it didn’t stop me. After that year when I came out and I started just cooking again, because I’d stopped cooking at home, I remember my mum saying to me, is everything okay because you’ve stopped cooking at home? And I said, ‘I don’t know if I like food anymore.’ And she said, why? And I said, it’s just the way they treat people in the kitchen. and I said, when I first came to Australia, I came, I had my PR. Mum said to me, listen, I went through a lot of rubbish here, but you don’t have to. If someone says anything to you, you stand up for yourself. don’t be afraid to. I didn’t need an invitation. I was always a loud mouth when I was a kid. I was always, and because I think we didn’t have, I wasn’t a fighter like my older brother was. He played rugby. He was pretty strong. So I had to learn to use my mouth to get me out of a situation. But working there, I thought, is this how they treat people in kitchens? I loved food, but I didn’t love food working there.
I didn’t end up going to TAFE. But I still devoured everything and I’d cook at home and I’d practise and I’d watch videos and devour cooking shows like crazy. When the internet allowed us to see the rest of the world, I did that as well. I would have loved to have gone and learned at TAFE, but I think I’ve got a very curious mind and I look back and I learn from a lot of old recipes. I love old cookbooks. Some of the recipes and suggestions are so interesting. I think we forget sometimes to look back. We poke fun at the 70s and the 60s and some of the stuff they did. But they experimented. They weren’t afraid to try it; the jelly with the meat in it might not have been nice, but they still tried new things. Even Fiji and the techniques that we use for cooking, it’s not really understood, but there’s a lot of technique that goes into a lot of our dishes. I was explaining to someone recently, there’s a dish in Fiji called lumi, which looks like angel hair pasta, but it’s seaweed. And that gets cooked in a coconut cream sauce and then poured into a tray and it sets like a jelly. Then they slice it up and you eat it with like cassava and sometimes with fish, but it’s the seaweed, cream, and they’ll add little bits of chilli and salt and onion to the dish. But there’s all these little techniques that I think it’s built up over the years, but a lot of times we look at Pacific Island food or Fiji food and we don’t think of it as elevated. There’s a chef in New Zealand, Henry, whose restaurant Tala is absolutely amazing because he’s he’s taken the food that they, like traditional food and given it a little, like plated it in a way that the Western Palate understands, but it’s still the inherent bit of it is from the culture. And so there’s a, I feel there’s a lot of that we bring with us, but it’s not understood. So I take a lot of the dishes, like for example, one of my dishes on when I do the Kana Club is sweet potato gnocchi with the sea urchin emulsion sauce. And in Fiji, we love cawaki, we call it. We just scoop it out and we eat it with boiled sweet potato, a little bit of chili, a little bit of salt, a little bit of lemon, everything is chili, salt and lemon like to dip into. Like we love a bit of heat, a little bit of saltiness. But I could never serve it up that way to people at a kind of club. So I thought, how can I keep that flavour. I remember the first time I did it at the first Kana Club, there were a few Fijian grandmas that came along. And one of them called me to the table and she said, I don’t eat cawaki, she didn’t like the texture of a sea urchin. And I thought, wait until it comes out and then you let me know if you like it. So then the dish came out and I was in the kitchen and one of the waitresses came in and said, oh, that little lady at the table is asking for some bread so she can dip into the sauce because she loved it so much.
My dad’s Lauan, which is indigenous Fijian, and my mum’s family are what’s known as part Europeans. They’re the Europeans that came to Fiji and stayed there or were intermarried. So I was always not quite Fijian enough, not quite European enough . I’ve always sat between the two worlds, but I think after losing my mum, I really honed in on food becoming my connector. Because that connects me back to her. So when I eat something, I think I’ll have memories of her. I started worrying that I was forgetting her. I always cooked and I’ve always hosted events with brands, with food. But all of a sudden I thought, I really need to share more of this because it’ll keep the memories alive.
Arrnott Olssen, The Kana Club
So, The Kana Club isn’t strictly traditional? You’re using traditional ideas and ingredients but doing something different with them?
With the food for The Kana Club, I basically take a lot of the dishes that I grew up with and reinterpret them or make small changes so it’s easier on the eye because we eat with our eyes first. if I put a whole sea urchin in front of you and told you to scoop it out and you don’t like the look or the texture of it, I need to get you to want to eat it first. Once you eat the flavours, and we’ve had a lot of people come through that have never eaten Fijian food is. They might know the idea of the lovo because they’ve seen it or gone to Fiji. Or the other thing that everyone’s really famous for is the kokoda, which is our version of the ceviche. There again, I twisted that idea: I use Humpty Doo barramundi for my kokoda. Humpty Doo is a saltwater farmed fish. Even Fijians can be a little wary. Tourism Fiji got me to make it for the launch of the flights between Nadi and the Gold Coast for Fiji Airways. I was at an event and I plated it up and I was talking about it and a few Fijians came and they said, oh, Barramundi, okay. Because we normally use a deep sea perch or snapper. But they really liked it. Sometimes in cultures we can be so set in a certain way that we get worried to step outside it to try something, add something new to it because it is our identity. I’ve lived here for 30 years. My dad’s Lauan, which is indigenous Fijian, and my mum’s family are what’s known as part Europeans. They’re the Europeans that came to Fiji and stayed there or were intermarried. So I was always not quite Fijian enough, not quite European enough . I’ve always sat between the two worlds, but I think after losing my mum, I really honed in on food becoming my connector. Because that connects me back to her. So when I eat something, I think I’ll have memories of her. I started worrying that I was forgetting her. I always cooked and I’ve always hosted events with brands, with food. But all of a sudden I thought, I really need to share more of this because it’ll keep the memories alive.
One of the reasons that I went into MKR, that I wanted to audition was, Fiji had lost a lot during lockdown, there was no tourism. So there was no income and people were suffering. And Australia was really pushing the idea of holidaying here. We have amazing beaches here and we’ve got beautiful places to holiday here. I thought if they can think of Fiji as not just a beach destination, maybe a food destination, maybe people will consider it because it’s closer than flying to one of the Asian countries. People don’t think of Fiji as a food destination, so that was one of my goals.
And you’re planning a Kana Club in Fiji?
We were planning the first Fiji food tour this year in November, but we’ve postponed it to May next year, so gave us a bit more time. I’m going in November because I need to be on the ground and scope out a few more spots. It is also the 75th anniversary of the school that I went to. So I’m going back for a little anniversary thing. Then I’m hoping to be hosting a little Kana Club there just to test the waters because I’ve had a few people message me and say, we’d love to have one here. And I’m having a conversation with Fiji Tourism about hosting a little one there. Because, and that’s the thing, there are a lot of ingredients here that we can’t get here. So yes, still a lot of it. And if it does come, it has to be frozen. So one example is nama, which is sea grapes.
Now, we could get it here because I know it grows wild along the Perth, because I’ve had friends that live in Perth send me videos of them picking it from the rocks around where the water is. So I know it’s here, but there’s that. There’s ota, which is a fern, which is very similar to the New Zealand’s fern, but that grows near running water and it’s a beautiful, full of iron that you use in salads or we’ll cook it with fish. When I go to Fiji, it’s duruka season, which is a sort of white tuberwhen you cook it, it becomes like sponge, we make it into a curry or we’ll cook it in coconut cream with fish. There’s quite a lot of fruity vegies that we still don’t get here. And I thought, Fiji is 4 1/2 hours away and we get product from Africa. Why haven’t we got it? There’s still a lot of stuff that I like to go and film and show people yes, there is things that you can do here. And also, because I get sent a lot of messages saying, I’m going to Fiji. Can you recommend some food places I can go eat? Eat out of the hotel because the hotels still aren’t caught up with. they’re still offering up the schnitzels and the burgers they might have a cocoa or they might have a cocoa or a lovo night or a curry night, but that’s it really compared to what’s out there. So hopefully they’ll start to like the more people like me out there pushing and talking about they’ll start to see it. I’m hoping that it’ll slowly start to change. And what that’ll do is it’ll then get people there growing stuff more and actually putting in, because we lost a bit of that after the coups. There’s a lot of people that were farmers or ran production who left. Now people going back who are starting to do that, and which is amazing.
I saw that you did a Kana Club in Melbourne last year at Queen Victoria Market, which I missed. Will you come back?
Yes, definitely. We actually didn’t do it last year. I’m not from Melbourne, so I didn’t know the dates, but they picked a date during Grand Finals week. Then they said, “We’re not sure why it’s not selling.” It ended up getting postponed, so I actually haven’t done one yet.
Well, I haven’t missed out on anything then!
No. And that’s what I thought. I thought, well, there was a reason why I wasn’t meant to do it. That’s one thing I’ve learned with a lot of the food stuff that I do. If an opportunity doesn’t open itself the way it should, then there’s a reason and I just leave it. And when I do come back and do it again, that’s when it’s meant to be. I’m having to think like that a lot about things because I think my controlling nature wants to make things happen and force it through.
I will talk your head off about food. I said to someone recently, I wonder why I didn’t go into food earlier. I really do talk about food a lot. I realised I talk about food and music, but food more than anything else. And I thought, I think it’s when you grow up poor, you think about food a lot. I think that’s what it is. I think it’s always thinking, what will mum create, out of nothing.
Arrnott Olssen, The Kana Club
I’m interested in that other part of your life: Popstars. Tell me about that.
Oh my God. I always sang when I was a kid, growing up in Fiji, music is part of our events and when we get together. I moved to Australia in 1995. I went and studied music at college, Bible college. And coming out of that, I thought, I got with an acting agency, started doing some acting and Popstars had just done Bardot. They started announcing that next year they were going to do a group. I thought, I’m going to audition. What’s the harm? I remember the people at the church we went to said, oh, don’t, because I had been in Australia for a few years, eating a different kind of food and I’d put on a bit of weight and I think I was unhappy in myself. But I thought, I’m going to audition anyway and just see what happens. I auditioned, did really well. got into the next round, and ended up going to the Gold Coast for the final group things. Then we had to go through and they culled and I got down to the final groups where they put us into groups. It was just an amazing experience because it gave me a boost. I think it’s a good example of what Australia can be. If you have the tenacity, talent, if you push through, you can do well. We got signed, nothing happened. And then two years later, they had a solo Popstars. I thought I’d audition again for that. I got into that again. And then got down to the last final four, did really well. Got signed again. They didn’t do anything with me. Then I just was singing around with DJs. I came to the conclusion that, do I love music because I want to be famous or do I love music because I love singing? And that was not easy to come to because I remember for the six months after the show, my flatmate that I lived with in Bondi rang my cousin up and he said, can you guys come and just check in on Arrnott? Because I think he’s a bit depressed because he’s been playing video games and he never plays video games and he’s up until 4am playing video games. They came and checked in on me and they just started turning up with food. But yes, it was a really great experience because I feel it gave me a platform to try new things and believe in myself. It’s easy for your mum to think that you can sing, but it’s different when other people say it too.
We’ve been trying to find a way to join food and singing without it being a bit icky, because it can be a little corny. But I just did the Shinzu Matsuri Festival in Broome. I created the menu for the 400 table dinner and so on the night, as the sun was setting, I sang My Island Home with the guitarists. There’s a Fijian community up there. We sang a few Fijian songs. Then I did a 45 minute set at the end, doing favourites like Proud Mary and Simply the Best, stuff that people love.
I feel like music and cooking are strands of the same thing. You love hospitality and sharing things with people, whether that’s through music or the food you create.
I was telling my cousin, she said, there’s a fine line between cool and not cool. So make sure you’re on the right side of that line. I thought, oh, thanks.
No pressure! It sounds as though you’ve got lots coming up. All the best with everything. It’s been lovely to meet you, albeit through the camera, and I look forward to meeting you in person one day.
I will be in Melbourne for the Nama Fiji Spa launch. Apparently it’s beautiful and it’s an amazing product. So they actually work with a couple of villages and the women go out and harvest the nama, the sea grapes. Then that’s used in the skincare because apparently it’s amazing for the skin. It’s delicious to eat as well.
Goodness on the inside and the outside!
Yes. It’s so delicious. I’ve actually found a place here where I could buy it and rehydrate it and I’ve used it on top of the dishes. People expected it to be really salty, but it isn’t. It is this pop of the sea, but not salty. When I was a kid, my mum used to go to the markets and get it in a little basket. And it would be fresh picked from the sea and it would come with a little plastic cup of kora, which is fermented coconut, grated coconut. You mix that in with your your sea grapes and make a little salad and you could add tuna or sometimes we chop up raw mussels into it and it’s absolutely delicious.
Yum! Thank you so much. I’ve loved this conversation. You’ve given me lots to think about.
Lots about food. Listen, I will talk your head off about food. I said to someone recently, I wonder why I didn’t go into food earlier. I really do talk about food a lot. I realised I talk about food and music, but food more than anything else. And I thought, I think it’s when you grow up poor, you think about food a lot. I think that’s what it is. I think it’s always thinking, what will mum create, out of nothing.