ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author, an economist by training, was from 1972 to 1977 successively, field director of the Australian National University's New Guinea Research Unit, and foundation director of the Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research in Port Moresby. In 1977 he was awarded the Papua New Guinea Independence Medal for his services to research in Papua New Guinea. Dr May is now a Senior Fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra.

Dr May ate his first caterpillar at the age of two, but his serious interest in cuisine began in 1942 when (wartime rationing notwithstanding) he discovered that eggs were a successful binding agent for mud pies. Since 1970 he and his wife and small son have travelled extensively in Papua New Guinea, and have eaten in all but three of the country's nineteen provinces.