COMMENT
Onions are special. Barely a recipe begins without calling for onions to be sliced or diced so their flavour-enhancing properties can be bestowed on the dish.
Thanks to science I now know those flavoursome and tear-inducing factors are organosulfur compounds. I also know that if not for my slicing and dicing
they'd stay locked up in the onion.
Amino acids and sulfoxides have to be mixed to get organosulfur compounds but in an onion they are kept apart by a membrane. Only when an insect starts to bore through the onion or a knife blade descends is the membrane broken and the components combined. The insects are repelled and the cooks cry.
In July, I brought you the view of a new Waikato resident who'd found Hamilton was like an onion. Contrary to the opinion of many, she had found that, like an onion, the city had layer upon layer of good things.
Since then I've discovered there's more to onions, and have met a bunch of people who think there's much more to the Waikato.
Science is unravelling the onion to find it may help ward off cancer and boost bone density while it flavours the stew. And some believe science could be the force that propels Waikato from one of the country's running jokes to one of its best assets.
Consider some statistics on which the view is founded.
Hamilton's Ruakura Research Centre is the largest agricultural and horticultural research institution of its type in the Southern Hemisphere and has an international reputation in biotech fields.
About 1,000 research scientists work in Hamilton - a city of 122,000 - giving it one of the highest ratios of scientists per capita in the world.
A quarter of the research undertaken in New Zealand takes place in Hamilton organisations.
Waikato University has 93 staff with PhDs working in life sciences, 36 staff with PhDs working in information and communication technology (ICT), 212 students undertaking PhD research in life sciences and 34 students undertaking PhD research in ICT.
Last week around 20 people representing Waikato or Hamilton education, business and sporting organisations attended a six-hour brainstorming session designed to identify what was hot about the Waikato and how it could be used to fire up the region's image and economy.
The meeting, at the behest of Waikato Management School dean Mike Pratt and Business2Hamilton chairman and WEL Networks chief executive Mike Underhill, was not to be about those perennials of places in search of personality - tag lines and logos. So, thankfully, this was no hunt to match or better Hamilton where it's happening, more than you expect, or not as bad as you thought.
Coming a day after figures showed that for the first time in six years the Waikato topped the country's regional economic growth table, the mood of the gathering was buoyant. In a process normally reserved for think tanks of corporates trying to arrest a share price slide, the challenge was to dig deep for the essence of a region disparaged as the Oamaru of the north.
Branding a company may be relatively normal procedure, attempting to brand a region is fraught territory - as the promoters of the of the ill-fated bid to re-name Hamilton as Waikato City a few years ago can attest. But unlike the Waikato City debacle - unheralded, unexpected and, ultimately, unwanted - last week's meeting comes as a growing number of Waikato individuals and organisations are increasingly keen to improve the image of a region they believe is underrated and undersold.
More sessions are planned to develop "brand Waikato" by consulting widely with anyone interested.
It's proposed that any newfound regional identity be used to back rather than replace the established images of Waikato companies and organisations sallying forth nationally and internationally.
Perhaps most challenging, though, will be whether those of us who live in the Waikato will be happy to see Mooloo's rump rebranded and whether we can be inveigled to start crowing instead of cringing about our region's attributes.
Like insects chewing through an onion there may yet be surprises in store for those peeling back Waikato's layers.
Or it could bring tears to our eyes.
* Email Philippa Stevenson
COMMENT
Onions are special. Barely a recipe begins without calling for onions to be sliced or diced so their flavour-enhancing properties can be bestowed on the dish.
Thanks to science I now know those flavoursome and tear-inducing factors are organosulfur compounds. I also know that if not for my slicing and dicing
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