Trying to Cook in NZ

Today, I want to talk a little about Coke. I love Coke. It is a great drink. I love ice cold out of a can. I love it from a glass bottle, I even like it out of a plastic bottle. There is nothing better than a Coke with some popcorn at the movies. But I have had some disappointments here in New Zealand. I don’t know what the problem is. First of all, there are many different tasting Cokes. I know they are all Coke, because they come out of Coke bottles, but some of them taste different. At work, it tastes a bit fruity. I don’t know what that is about, but the other day, the bar served us raspberry Coke. I didn’t even know it existed. I am still not sure that it does. I think the problem is probably the sweetener, but it really tastes different. All the other Cokes I have had (Malaysian, English, Mexican, Tunisian) have all tasted like Coke, but that’s not the case here. Finally, the Coke and popcorn at the movies is just plain wrong here. There is only one theater in Nelson and they advertise that they sell Coke, but it is not Coke. It tastes like some sort of strange fruit drink; it reminds me of Irn Brew from Scotland. This strange concoction makes me thirstier and kind of makes my mouth tingle. It is just plain bad. Nina thinks it is some kind of generic cola being pawned off as Coke.

Now I want to make just a few quick thoughts on Kiwi’s food preferences. I have noticed two things at the restaurant that I find odd. First of all, when food is delivered to a customer, almost to a person, they all grab the salt and go to town with it. They grab the salt before they pick up their forks. The food I send out from the kitchen always has enough salt on it. I like salt, so I make sure my food has enough on it. These people then add more salt without tasting it first. It is crazy. The second thing is that lamb rump is vastly more popular than rack of lamb. When I have a rump special, it sells very well, maybe up to 15% percent of the orders. The rack of lamb will be lucky to sell 5%. It is the same for the pork tenderloin and not surprisingly the venison. I don’t understand why people love the mediocre cuts of meat and completely shun the tasty ones. Thirdly is the strange tastes people have for cheese and cured meats. Cheese in New Zealand is strangely expensive. This country used to be the dairy to the British Empire, it is still filled with cows and sheep. In fact I can sheep across the way from my window now on an adjacent hill. The country should be drowning in milk and milk products, but it isn’t. Milk prices and consequently cheese prices have skyrocketed lately and the choices in the supermarkets are not very good at all. It probably says something that the most common type of cheese is “Tasty.” I think it is like cheddar, but they also have some cheddar, so I don’t know for sure. There is brie and Camembert, but it is of dubious quality. The good local cheeses are very expensive and don’t even think of buying imported cheese (Parmesan runs above $75NZ a kilo. Even thought the cheese is a little bad, people still eat it up. As for your salamis and other cured meats, there are some good ones made here, but most people prefer Verkers, a factory made salami. It comes in Danish, Italian and a few other nationalities styles, but they all taste similar and pretty metallic. It is really quite disappointing. Finally, at the restaurant, the $36,000NZ of Tasman Bay scallops that were purchased back during the scallop season in August are almost gone and it sounds like we won’t get more until next season. I didn’t know scallops had a season. Just one more strange bit of New Zealand food trivia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.