In Which I'm Hungry So I Talk About Food

Kia ora!

So I decided that I should probably start answering all those burning questions that people have but don't actually voice, such as: what's the weather like over here?, what is the fashion like?, and does the water in the toilet bowl really flow in the other direction? Since I'm hungry, I decided that the best one to address is the subject hat is near and dear to me at the moment (and my kitties at home): food.

When I say food, most people think lamb because, let's face it, New Zealand has a lot of sheep. I don't know how many times I was asked "do you like lamb?" when I told people I was coming to New Zealand! There was this idea that since New Zealand raises a lot of sheep, then Kiwis must eat enormous amounts of lamb. In fact, I believed this fact to be so true that I braced myself for a diet of nothing but lamb, mutton, seafood, and kiwi fruit. I also thought that by the second week I would be totally and completely sick of lamb in all its forms, and come home hating the stuff.

Imagine my sheepish surprise, then, when I found out that most New Zealand people don't eat lamb on a daily basis! Yes, here is a lot of lamb in the store, and it takes up more freezer space in the meat aisle than it would at home, but the main protein of choice is often beef or sausages. For the free barbeques over orientation weekend, sausage was the prevalent item on the grill. Fish, followed closely by chicken, over here is actually the pricier meat half the time, and if there's any food I'm sick of at the moment it's beef mince! While Kiwis do eat lamb more often than Americans do, every meal is certainly not mutton.

Where can you get lamb then? Around the university and city center is the curious case of the souvlaki shops, with lamb, beef, and chicken souvlaki. It's like Starbucks in the fact you can't walk a mile without finding a souvlaki shop on either side of the street, and often you'll find more than one on the same, square mile stretch of road! After souvlaki shops, Indian food places reign supreme, and one of the restaurants on campus is Marco Pollo's Spice Traders, dealing in, you guessed it!, Indian cuisine. After this, Thai places and fish and chip places come in a tied third. I don't know if the occurrences of these restaurants have to do with either the fact these foods are popular, or the largest department at University of Canterbury is Engineering with a large Asian/Middle Eastern attendance, or quite possibly both, but either way, lamb is easy enough to order in the Indian and Greek eateries.

The concept of fast food still seems to be new here, as the only American restaurant chains I've seen are McDonalds, Burger King, KFC (which seems to be quite popular here), and Dennys. If you walk into a Chinese restaurant off the corner of Manchester street near Cathedral Square, you'll be asked if it's for here or to go. If you say "for here", you're served on a glass plate. Since tipping isn't expected or asked for, you eat, then leave the dirty dishes on the table and walk out. "To go" earns you the symbolic Styrofoam box we all know. If you don't ask for "to go", you could easily be fooled into thinking many of the restaurants around here are cheaper, faster sit down places that you might go on a casual date to.

I've talked a lot about lunch and dinner type foods because, well, it's in the middle of the afternoon for me! Breakfast isn't anything particularly spectacular or unique, however. One popular item is muesli with yogurt, and a lot of people will eat toast with some type of spread. A popular spread here is called Marmite, and it has a bit of an ominous ring to it if you say it slow enough, for good reason! Marmite is a yeast spread, and is generally unheard of in America (again, for good reason). The whole point of it is you're supposed to put a THIN layer on, as in, thin enough that you're scraping more toast off than Marmite on. When I tried it, the person who made it was mistaken in this fact, and slathered it on like it was Nutella, which it resembles to in color and texture. WARNING: Do not attempt to copy that style of Marmite application! While I've been told Marmite is a cultural thing, which is a fancy way of saying "you have to grow up with it to like it", my experience of Marmite was a burnt soy, overly salty spread. It's gross, and I recommend trying it just to be able to complain about it!

Drinks here are different in the fact that I've heard they don't put as much artificial sweeteners in them. The soft drinks I've had have tasted different, and I'm inclined to believe this despite having done no research on the fact. A popular drink over here, called L&P, is lemon and paeroa. It tastes a bit like Freesca, but it's more bitter, and has a bad aftertaste. It's made only in New Zealand, however, and thus is rightly considered a cultural food.

And now, on to my favorite part: desserts! Cadbury is the main chocolate brand over here, and with Cadbury having a factory down in Dunedin, I can see why! New Zealanders do love their confectioneries, as the candy aisle is called, and a big love of Kiwis is chocolate covered marshmallow things. Another big candy item is pineapple lumps, which are lumps of pineapple dipped in chocolate. Or, at least they SAY it's pineapple, but I it doesn't quite look like pineapple when you bite through the middle of it... Down here, biscuits are cookies, and cobblers are quite common to see as a desert item, but the biggest momma of the desert world is definitely pavlova.

Ask any Kiwi and they will know what pavlova is. They will also be sure to tell you that New Zealand, not Australia, came up with it (they might say this more than once. especially if an Aussie is in the vicinity). The dessert is supposedly named after Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina dancer, visited New Zealand. Inspired by the ballerina's large, white tutu, a chef decided to make a dessert and named if after the graceful star. Pavlova is a meringue dessert, and is made mostly with egg whites. It's light, fluffy, crispy on the outside, and super sweet though not very filling. A lot of people will put some type of sauce, such as raspberry sauce or such, on top to give it more flavor. It is quite excellent however, and as opposed to Marmite, I highly recommend it!

And to answer the inevitable question coming from a lot of people, yes, I do eat three meals a day, and it's not ALWAYS peanut butter sandwiches. I would not, however, want to be living on a low-end salary in New Zealand. Food is expensive - milk is about $4 for two litres! - and while I'm lucky that the conversion rate is good for my U.S. dollar, I feel bad for the locals as food prices seem to be at a high. For a lot of us college students, it's buy as we need the items, or buy as is on sale, a trend that a lot of non-student people seem to be following as well. This makes for more frequent trips to the store, but I'm not sure the fridge could hold anymore anyway.

Now that I've written myself into a state of salivation, I am off to finish homework before dinner, and to let everyone else finish wiping off their workspaces after that drool fest! I hope that you are all well, happy, or at least tolerating your job or school work, and remember, spring break is almost here! I don't have break until April, and by then it will be fall, so enjoy your warming climate over there! I'll try to hit on questions and myths about New Zealand, so if you have any or heard any, let me know! Otherwise, hope you enjoyed the random diversion on today's food theme.


Cheers,
Nicole

Exodus 16:12