It's said that too many cooks can spoil the broth. But for those charged with feeding the thousands at the upcoming Okinawa summit of the Group of Eight, it's likely a dash of diplomacy will be a key ingredient along with local flavors.

At dining facilities at the July summit site in Nago, 125 chefs will have a hand in dishing out 40,000 meals to the press during the six-day event.

And among the ingredients will be almost 1,250 kg of beef, 600 kg of pork and 1,500 kg of lettuce.

The leafy veggie will be encountered at salad bars, which will feature nine different salads, seven types of toppings and six dressings.

However, the majority of the cooking for the estimated 5,000 Japanese and foreign media personnel set to gather in Nago will have been completed quite some time before the summit officially gets under way on July 21.

Come July 10, some 10 tons of prepackaged dishes, prepared by a top team of chefs in Tokyo, will be flown in from the capital to the summit site together with 8 tons of cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils.

The meals will be the fruit of a joint effort by chefs from Hotel Okura, a venture in Okinawa between hotels and the local chefs' association, and 80 trainee chefs studying in the prefecture.

Many of the chefs will also be involved in the second phase of the cooking process after the food arrives in Okinawa — such as reheating and seasoning the dishes, according to Hotel Okura official Masahiro Kiyohara.

Local ingredients and local dishes specially developed by Okura and Okinawan chefs "to show the unique qualities of Okinawan food" form the basis of the summit menu, which itself simmered for some three months before getting the final seal of approval, Kiyohara said.

Some local ingredients, however, will be in limited supply due to the season in which the event is being held, he said.

One special dish being prepared for the event is a summit variation on an Okinawan favorite, "buta no kakuni" (stewed chunks of pork). Accompanying this dish will be eight kinds of vegetables, one for each of the nations participating in the summit, Kiyohara said.

Hotel Okura Tokyo is no spring chicken when it comes to preparing large-scale banquets with an international flavor. In 1998, it prepared the meals for sponsors and their guests at the Nagano Winter Olympics under a similar joint-venture contract.

The Okinawa summit project, however, makes Nagano seem like a piece of cake, Kiyohara said.

"We prepared 30,000 meals for Nagano. But that was over a period of 16 days," he said. "By comparing these statistics, I think you'll appreciate the challenge this operation presents."

Yet this is not the only culinary summit caterers will have to climb.

With the G8 summit being held in the middle of an Okinawan summer, keeping food sanitary will be a major stomachache.

To this end, six 40-foot containers — three to be used as refrigerators, three as freezers — will be delivered to the press center especially for use at the summit.

One of them will be used entirely for garbage, and garbage collectors will visit the center five times a day, according to Kiyohara.

Another problem still under discussion is how to prepare certain items on the menu, such as the Okinawan delicacy "nigauri" (bitter melon).

Kiyohara said some officials have expressed concern that such dishes will not suit the pallettes of foreign journalists.

"We are at a loss as to what to do. Some say we should cook the nigauri longer so it loses some of its bitter taste. Others say that nigauri without the bitter taste is not an Okinawan dish," he said.