A note on Kiwi food

I just realized that I have not discussed Kiwi food here. Now just like every other place, in the larger or more trendy cities, you can find good food. However, remember that there are only 4 million people here. 1.4 million live in Auckland. There are less than 700,000 people on the entire South Island. So the majority of the people live in or near small villages. Some don't know what good food is supposed to taste like.

In pretty much any town, there will be a cafe' (pronounced "caff" here) or a "Take away" or both. NZ cooks all must have graduated from the British Academy for the Culinary "Arts". Their motto is "If we can't deep fry it, or boil it, we don't serve it". They sell batter-dipped french fries here. No joke. Everything tastes like fried fish. They cook everything in the same deep fat fryer. When you see something listed as including salad, they mean the shredded lettuce that they put on your hamburger (hamburger is called "mince" here), and is served with sliced beets instead of pickles.

Breakfasts are pretty much the same everywhere you eat. They will have the "Kiwi breakfast". This comprises eggs, toast, grilled tomatoes, saute'd mushrooms, bacon and "sausage". There are three options for eggs: fried, scrambled or poached. There are no sub-classifications like "over easy". Fried eggs will look like the charred craters of the moon on the back, and have snot on the top. Poached can come anywhere between snot and hard boiled. If you ask to have something redone, they look at you like you just asked them the square root of 327.

Something that they do have here that is better than home is bacon. What they call bacon, we would call ham (though they also have ham...). This is thin sliced slabs from the pork shoulder. Virtually no fat (bummer). To get the kind of bacon we are used to, you have to ask for "streaky bacon". Forget about the sausage. It's just like Canada.

On many menus they list "American hot dog". I've often thought that maybe I could set myself up here as a hot dog consultant, because they really need one bad. They don't understand that it's the hot dog that makes the hot dog, not the bun. They are under the impression that if they just put a "frankfurter" on a bun, it's an American Hot Dog. I know; I bought one...once. Sausages and "frankfurters" are some kind of pureed meat substance with repugnant (including cloves) spices, squirted into a skin, and dipped in red dye. When you bite into it, there is a ring of dye 1/8" thick. Having said all that, I haven't lost any weight.