Recently returned from working for the United Nations in Iraq, EIT chef tutor Mark Caves was inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine in creating a main for FAWC’s fêted Noel Crawford Memorial Dinner.

The slow-cooked spiced lamb dish featured at two sold-out dinners held at EIT’s Scholars Restaurant as fundraisers for an annual scholarship that covers the fees of a final-year trainee chef.  

Mark’s take on traditional Iraqi fare included kubba, cashew muhammara and fermented garlic, ingredients ‘discovered’ during his culinary exploration of Iraq.

Mark started working for the UN last November, after UNESCO asked EIT if any of its chef tutors could assist their team writing curricula for teaching construction, agriculture and hospitality students in the war-torn country.

 “This is part of the UN’s Reform of Iraq project,” he says, “and it is aimed at repairing the vocational education sector.”

During the seven years Isis occupied Iraq, half of the country’s 5000 hotels were damaged or destroyed.   Mark’s input is now informing the teaching of trainee chefs and bar and wait staff who, it is hoped, will help support a growing tourism industry.

On his three trips to Iraq, Mark was based in the capital of Kurdistan, Erbil.  

“I was really excited by the prospect,” the father of four says of being invited to a country liberated in December last year. “I trusted that I would be safe and out of the firing line.”

With much of the infrastructure destroyed, Mark initially struggled to locate a suitable work space and equipment for teaching students.  Then, having pinpointed a hotel restaurant, the Iraqi government were no longer able to fund the purchase of ingredients. 

Despite these challenges, he was impressed by the standard of the hospitality industry. 

“Even though local chefs lack international experience, waitstaff are so professional – and I didn’t expect that.”

Everything done for the Iraqi people is hugely appreciated, he says.

“The teachers I was working with regarded me as a celebrity chef and I was treated like royalty.  They think it’s amazing that people are coming from overseas to show them how to teach.”

The locals’ enthusiasm spurred Mark to work late nights and weekends writing the course and the teachers and chefs he met at hotels in Erbil have become his friends on Facebook.

“One incredible experience was finding we shared a common language in terminology used in French cuisine,” he says of these Kurdish and Arabic speakers.  “There were big smiles being able to use and recognise those terms.”

Well looked after in Iraq, Mark initially staying in a UN compound in Baghdad and then at a five-star hotel in Erbil.  Travelling around in an armoured vehicle, he felt unsafe only once – in a marketplace where, wearing a suit for a meeting, he stood out from everyone else dressed in traditional or casual clothing.

“That said, there is a code of honesty about the multi-ethnic population.  No-one steals anything and they are a lovely, welcoming and gentle people.”

Mark says he gained a great deal from his experience.

“One of the main drivers for going there was to learn.  Now I’m building that into my teaching at EIT.”