New Zealand’s Cuisine — Does It Exist?
Let’s talk about food and have a much closer look at New Zealand’s cuisine. As a European you might ask yourself, “is there any kind of special thing?” And, “what might I be confronted with while visiting a country such far away from Italy?”
Of course, you can get pizza all over the world, nowadays. So calm down, you won’t have to miss your favourite food miles away from the next Italian restaurant. Actually, you can get a really cheap and fast pizza at Domino’s immediately after arriving in Auckland. Or after visiting Cathedral Cove, I highly recommend to order a pizza at the Purangi Winery.
Nevertheless, this is not the only foreign food you can try. As New Zealand is a multicultural country and also has a growing Asian population, there are many Asian restaurants in big cities like Auckland.
Moreover, many Asian language students travel to New Zealand to improve their English and even my school had an “Asian food sale” during lunchtime that left most of us Europeans looking quite foolish whenever we tried to eat some rice with chopsticks.
Having spent four weeks in a New Zealand household, I noticed a preference for peanut butter, jam, cereals and salted butter with — of course — toast (if you cannot survive without bread, you should definitely take a recipe with you to New Zealand as it is hard to find any good alternatives). For dinner I was always offered some well-known food like Spaghetti with vegetables, or tofu with broccoli, potatoes and ketchup (fortunately, my host mother was vegetarian as well).
So far so good, but these kind of things could be found in every town in Germany as well. Therefore, I now present you the things that were more typical Kiwi to me.
Fish and Chips
Known as a traditional British meal, Fish and Chips is also served in New Zealand in a typical simple way and you can enjoy it e.g. at Mission Bay while being accompanied by millions of hungry seagulls.
Mrs Higgins Oven Fresh Cookies
It’s hard to resist the smell of these warm or even hot cookies, whenever you pass a little snack stand.
Scones
Scones always remind me of big muffins, someone else may describe them as “a small, round cake that is like bread, made from flour, milk and a little fat.” You may enjoy the following at The Old Mountaineer’s Cafe at Mount Cook.
Mount Cook Backpacker Breakfast
This one might not be such a typical breakfast for New Zealand, but it quite represents the situation you will be confronted with during your stay at Mount Cook. As there is no supermarket in this tiny village, you should better bring your own food or invest in a breakfast offered by the hostel/hotel. The YHA offers you two peaces of toast, some cereals, tea and different kinds of toppings.
Hokey Pokey Ice Cream
Our bus driver once told us that we will be “incomplete travellers” if we leave New Zealand without having tasted its fabulous ice cream, “only made in New Zealand.” Hokey Pokey Scoops may be introduced as “crunchy butterscotch balls, folded into creamy honeycomb flavoured ice cream.” So there we go, here is a picture of the famous ice cream for you:
Cromwell
Cromwell, also known as “The Fruit Bowl of New Zealand”, is “famous for orchards, fresh fruit, vineyards and pinot noir.” While passing the small city with a population of about 4.000 people, you may have a short break at one of the fruit stalls to try some of the goods offered.
Finally, I hope you got a little insight into New Zealand’s cuisine and food offerings. However, there are other dishes and practices. For instance, I did not mention Hangi, a “traditional Maori style of cooking”, Kiwi’s vivid “barbecue culture” or one of the “country’s 376 wineries.”
