A Quick History of New Zealand Food …or how and why we eat what we do

An Over view everyculture.com states that there is “no New Zealand cuisine” Our cuisine is a fusion of Pacific and European foods as they have been adapted to our unique climate Other cultural foods have heavily influenced New Zealand cookery as travel has become more common and globalisation and americanisation have taken hold

Pre European Food It’s most likely that the first Maori settlers brought with them many typical foods from Polynesia, including kumara, yams, kune kune, and chickens Polynesian cusine relies heavily on kai moana and early settlers would have brought these traditions with them

The much more southern location of Aoteroa meant that many of the foods that Polynesians might have brought with them (banana, taro, coconut etc) just weren’t able to grow here. So the settlers would have adapted their cuisine to what they could find here Food shortages were very common among the early Maori and they relied heavily on starchy staples (kumara and other root vegetables) to get them through.

Traditional Polynesian Maori and Polynesian diet relies heavily on starchy, filling foods called kai and was balanced out for nutrition and taste by proteins and other flavour creators called kinaki This idea of a meal that is heavily based on starchy, filling foods has filtered through into most Kiwis daily cooking.

Early European While the early settlers brought with them a much wider variety of staple foods, they long sea voyage meant that many arrived short of supplies and suffered from similar shortages to the tangata whenua Once immigration set in, Europeans brought many new crops with them including; potatoes, wheat (for bread), livestock (sheep and pigs) and cows or goats for milk

The early British settlers brought with them a taste for meat and potatoes but little else in the ways of vegetables- they also prepared and ate bread and other sweet cakes/puddings Settlers who had land were likely to have grown their own vegetables even though they probably wouldn’t have before

Other European settlers brought there own unique traditions and crops- for example it is likely that pumpkin arrived with American whalers Re write

1920s-1940s Food during the interwar period in New Zealand was still very much dominated by farming culture. Home-kill, hunting, foraging and vegetable patches made up most peoples diet. Towns, communities and farms were self-sufficient, imported foods just didn’t exist. Soldiers came back from the war with new tastes, cooking skills and foods with them.

1950s-1960s The 50s and 60s saw the beginnings of convenience foods in NZ. War time soldiers has returned with new ideas and technologies discovered around the world and everyday NZers had fridges, freezers, supermarkets, and ‘fast food’. Our heavily meat focussed diet began to shift for some as ‘hippy’ culture began to spread. War time technologies were re-applied and the advancement in food preservation leapt forward.

1970s-1980s Changing attitudes to women in the 70s and 80s flowed on to changing attitudes towards home life, including cooking. Food remained a centre point for social occasions and dinner parties were prevalent. Milk in NZ was subsidised by the government and the advances in science led to developments in health and nutrition. Most food would’ve still been prepared in the home, but American style fast-food had made its way into most NZ cities.

1990s-Present American style fast food had well and truly infiltrated NZ culture and dining was a regular and sometimes everyday occurrence. More recently a focus on ‘slow food’ and home made food has come as health professionals and NZers in general have realised the impact our eating patterns on our health. Vegetarian and ethnic influences began in the 70s and have become a part of most NZers regular diet whether through take-aways, dining out or home cooking.

Your task… a) choose a decade from NZ history b) use this class time to find out what you can about any food developments or influences during your decade c) Insert this information into the blank power-point slide on the wiki space so that we can print out the information and create a timeline of NZ Food History.