Wellington Journal

US v NZ: Food

It would be crazy to try to compare the national cuisine of a nation of 4 million people, which I’ve only experienced for a couple months, to a country 60 times its size in just a few short paragraphs!  So this post will be several paragraphs long and will include bullet points.  Can’t say we don’t give everyone a fair shake around here.

=> American Fare

A coin has been flipped, and the American side wins home field advantage for the first round.  So let’s start with some quintessentially American food, like pizza, burgers, hot dogs and ice cream.

G. W. Bush’s grand effort to reduce American importance and goodwill around the world notwithstanding, Kiwis are no strangers to American food.  But there are a few subtle differences: For example, the standard, go-to pizza in these parts is not pepperoni, but ham and pineapple (Pacific island influence, perhaps?); in fact, the choices for take-home pizza at the grocery store do not even include pepperoni … or even plain cheese, which I find odd.  Burgers are burgers, but here they like to season theirs with aioli, a sort of garlicky-mayo-like kind of condiment.  (And in my book, “garlicky-mayo-like” can only be perceived as positive.)  As far as the burgers themselves go, I am pretty sure that grass-fed goodness makes the meat especially yummy, even when dining at a chain. (BurgerFuel is my personal favorite here.)

On the other side of the spectrum are the New Zealand hot dogs, which are just horrible.  The joy that I felt when I realized that almost all of the hot dogs here are corn dogs was matched only by the despair I felt when I first tasted one.  I honestly never thought anyone could keep me from loving my corn dog, but good on ya, NZ: you pulled it off.

So how about dessert?  Since we’re talking about BurgerFuel, I’ll admit that their shakes aren’t really up to snuff.  Too much like a malted and not enough like drinking ice cream.  Of course, there’s good ice cream to be had at specialty shops here, just as there is in the states (though it’d be hard to find a place that matches the incredible experience of a Kaffe Eis cup of almost-but-not-quite-gelato).  But when it comes to your basic store-bought ice cream, the Kiwis have this one cold (heh, heh).  Cadbury Creamy Vanilla is the kind of  ice cream that you’d pick up if you were just grabbing a gallon (sorry, liter) for home, but even so, it tastes like Ben & Jerry themselves churned it for you.  I’ve been thinking that I could lose a few pounds if I just cut out dessert, but it looks like that’ll have to wait until I return to Boulder.

=> New Zealand Fare

Okay, the US had its chance, what about standard New Zealand cuisine?  Frankly, I have no idea what that is (and I don’t feel like taking the time to look it up).  There are definitely some “Kiwi as” foods, and certainly some foods that we’re enjoying here which we’d have only rarely or never back in the states, though I’m not sure how many of these are really Kiwi instead of just British or Aussie imports.  But hey, we’re talking four million people here.  There aren’t too many Colorado-specific foods out there either.

But when I look back at our time here, I’ll definitely remember the meat pies.  Generally any corner dairy (that’s Kiwi for “convenience store”) will have a variety of frozen meat pies available, much like the same kind of stores in the states would have hot dogs (oh, hot dogs, I miss you).  And they’re just as yummy as they are incredibly bad for you.  Which really makes me wonder why they’ve not caught on in the states; we’re like the perfect target market.  Another example: crumpets, which we now have regularly for breakfast, are obviously superior to toast or even English muffins.  America could learn a thing or two from the buttery goodness of crumpets.

As for desserts: I probably shouldn’t have been so blasé about Kiwi cuisine before.  There is at least one Kiwi-born food that I’ve tried and loved: pavlova.  It’s a fluffy mixture of egg whites and sugar with whipped cream and fruit and, well, need I say more?  Sara made one for Katie’s birthday (see left) and even as a family we couldn’t finish it; though we all ate as much as we possibly could.  And if you’re going to pick a food to call your own, a yummy dessert sure beats “American cheese”, eh?

=> Neighboring Cuisines 

One thing I sort of expected down here in the SE quadrant of the world was that our proximity to Asian countries would mean better Chinese or (woo hoo!) Indian food.  Maybe the perfect restaurant is hiding, or maybe the Asian food in the states is hard to beat, but so far I’ve not been impressed.  And the lack of good Mexican items in the supermarket (something that’s plentiful in Colorado) is heart-breaking.

Final Decision

I suppose I could say that each national cuisine has its merits; or I could enjoy the new experiences here without comparing them to my home country; or I could even admit that I have neither the experience nor the expertise to make a final judgment… but where’s the fun in that?  Somebody’s gotta win.  And after weighing the different sides, I’m afraid I have to give this one to the Kiwis.  True, they’ve not figured out pizza exactly, and I can’t for the life of me find anywhere that sells blue cheese dressing, but between the aioli and the Cadbury Creamy Vanilla, I’m afraid they’ve outdone the Yanks yet again.

Current Score:  USA 0, NZ 2.

Labels: US vs NZ

posted by Dug @ 2:19 PM