F is for Foodie Treats: the tastes of New Zealand

• Green-lipped Muscles:

We had a pot full for New Years Eve. 

They are a New Zealand specialty not to be found anywhere else in the world. They are large, fatty and quite delicious, with a dark green shell and a green lip of course! 

Will look out for them again during our South Island trip.

• Fish and Chips:

We have been treated to excellent fish and chips on our travels, blue warehou mostly is the catch of the day, firm and white fleshy fish and very tasty.

Yesterday, coming down from our tramping along the Southern Walkway, Shawni introduced us to one of their favourites, the Mt Vic Chippery, a quaint shop in Mount Victoria who have a lunch special for $10 which was a win, having just done some strenuous walking.

• Pies and Tomato Relish as well as Bacon and Egg Pies.

Fred has always loved pies, especially steak and kidney pies, and New Zealand has not disappointed. A new taste for me was a butter chicken pie recommended by Craig and very yummy indeed. Some of the cafes we frequented also prepared a local favourite, a bacon and egg slice/pie, a good breakfast option with a mug of coffee. Pies are served with a relish and often homemade too.

Pies have been a staple on the holiday.

• New Zealand Lollies, otherwise known as sweets and chocolates:

Whittakers, huge thick slabs of delicious chocolate especially the Hokey Pokey, which is a sponge toffee filling. Shawni put the special peanut slab into Fred’s stocking for Christmas.

The Jaffa, a little round hard coated orange flavoured candy with a chocolate centre, great for while watching movies or TV.

• Coffee: all day and everywhere 

Flat whites, cappuccinos, lattes, regular, large, have in or take out.

I have so enjoyed each coffee stop, with or with out a treat, but always a pleasure.

Pick up the newspaper, find a sudoku. 

Life is better for a good cup of coffee.

• New Zealand Cookies – Afgans, Anzacs and Gingernuts

Afghans – chocolate-coated cornflake biscuits rather like a single Romany Cream. 

I am on the lookout now for the Anzacs. I enjoyed this article from Stuff.co.nz about the competition between Australia and New Zealand for the ownership of these biscuits - a matter of national pride:

"As a patriotic nibble, Anzac biscuits are second to none. But for years New Zealand has had a better claim to the original recipe and name.

Now Australia might be able to take back the biscuit, or at least a few crumbs of national pride, after the discovery of a recipe published in a Melbourne newspaper in 1921.

Australian and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli in 1915 probably ate nothing resembling today's Anzac biscuit, that delicious combination of rolled oats, golden syrup, sugar, flour, desiccated coconut and melted butter. (They had to make do with the dreaded hard-tack "tiles" in their ration-packs.)

Until now, the first Australian-published recipe for a recognisable Anzac biscuit was credited to a 1923 edition of Mrs H W Shaw's Six Hundred Tested Recipes.

However, by picking through the National Library of Australia's Trove website - which contains digitised records of many Australian newspapers - AAP has found Melbourne's Argus newspaper printed a recipe for Anzac biscuits on July 6, 1921.

The recipe, supplied by a reader identified as "Caulfield" reads:

"Two breakfast-cupfuls John Bull oats, half-cupful sugar, one scant cupful plain flour, half-cupful melted butter. Mix one tablespoonful of golden syrup, 2 tablespoonfuls boiling water, and one teaspoonful of soda till they froth; then add the melted butter. Mix in dry ingredients, and drop in spoonfuls on a floured tray. Bake in a slow oven."

The recipe has the right name, ingredients and method to stake a claim as the earliest recorded true Anzac Biscuit recipe. (Desiccated coconut does not seem to have been included in any version until 1927.)

However, Dr Helen Leach, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Otago and the recognised authority on the Anzac biscuit, sounds a sobering note.

She points to a remarkably similar recipe - for Anzac Crispies - that was published in New Zealand in 1919 in the eighth edition of the St Andrew's Cookery Book.

Its ingredient quantities are double those of the newly-found Australian recipe, which makes Leach think "they're clearly related".

"I would say that yours may not be a copy of mine, but they may have the same ancestor."

Bought some Anzac biscuits, will try then with tea tonight

• L&P (Lemon and Paeroa):

A sweet, uncoloured soft drink made by combining lemon juice with carbonated mineral water from the town of Paeroa. 

We had to pop past and take a photo of the giant 7 meter, 1.3m diameter L&P bottle, which did not impress Fred! 

The comical pretentious advertising slogan "World Famous in New Zealand" has become a popular saying here.

• Ice cream: 

Any and all flavours have been delicious.

We have been choosing Salted Caramel whenever we can.

A special memory from our 2011 RWC trip was ice-cream from Kaffee Eis, along Oriental Bay. 

So Shawni and I popped in after one of our long walks and bought cones, sat on a bench along the promenade and watched the world go by while enjoying our choices - my tiramisu was delicious - and another - who would have thought moment.

• Kiwi fruit:

No surprise and quite delicious for breakfast with natural yoghurt.

• Kumara:

Large orange coloured sweet potatoes, yummy as a chip, a mash, roasted and even mashed.

• Classic Kiwi Onion Soup Dip:

This tasty but rich dip is a kiwi classic at parties. Made with reduced cream, onion soup and vinegar. Craig whipped one up for us last night with the braai, and against expectations we all finished the bowl full in no time with carrot stacks and nachos.

"Kiwis love it, expats miss it and the rest of the world is just missing out."

Supermarkets group packets of onion soup and tins of reduced cream together on the shelves so locals can make their favourite dip.

Ingredients

Makes: 1 cup

         250g reduced cream

         32g sachet onion soup mix

         1 tablespoon vinegar

Combine reduced cream, onion soup and vinegar until well mixed. 

Cover and allow to chill in the fridge for at least an hour. 

Serve with chips and crudities.