- 1 beetroot bulb
- 1 packet of port wine jelly
meri (the yenta) and i met when we were neighbours in brooklyn… the polish part of that old nabe. i loved the ease of visiting the farmer’s market every saturday; buying old-fashioned milk and artisanal cheeses. getting the fresh polish-style bread from the local “warsaw” bakery… you know it’s free of preservatives because it goes bad in 48 hours as real bread should do.
meri and i bonded over several things: green living; relaxed parenting; dirty jokes; vampires; and FOOD. ah. love of food. but of course…
two years ago my family and i moved to new zealand. a job offer brought us here, but the country’s reputation as an unspoiled wonderland of ‘green’ living and organic farming definitely had an appeal, too. previously the only thing we knew about new zealand was that the sheep outnumber the people: 4 million people / 40 million sheep.
well, here’s the rub: kiwis are NOT green. not in the conservationist sense. so few people spread on two islands the approximate size of california means that they can be lazy and it won’t affect their environment too much… yet. they’re wasteful and don’t do even the minimum effort of most western nations. specific examples? using old-fashioned plastic trash bags instead of biodegradable ones (as required by law in europe); not composting; driving everywhere instead of using public transit; public transit is still on diesel (for crying out loud!); dumping untreated waste in water systems; building roads and not providing for alternative transportation. i could go on, but you get the idea.
the one area where they do outshine the USA is farming. for the most part the farming techniques here are wholesome, grass-fed beef, organic fruit and veg, well-cared for free range animals. they’re also better about eating foods in season. this is a european way to eat and although it means that you get fed up with foods at certain times of year, but it’s a better system of eating for the health of the planet.
it’s summer here (now… now… you northern hemisphere people don’t go hating on us just cause i’ve been to the beach today), which means we’ve been through a bumper crop of strawberries. we’ve done a lot of strawberry picking and this is the sweet stuff of my childhood dreams… not the tasteless crap you can buy at your local supermarket in the middle of winter. i’m a little sick of strawberries now but the season is almost over and it’ll be on to the next seasonal food. green beans, anyone?
yes, eating in season means you’re stuck with cooking a lot of potato and root vegetable recipes in winter, but if you get creative it is not a burden. once a week my partner hits up the fish market and gets some shrimp and smoked cod and makes a KILLER fish pie (potato mash, grated cheddar, some spice, bake it up and you’re off to the races). we learned this recipe by necessity trying to find new ways to serve potato.
to further confuse things, familiar ingredients may go by a different name, sometimes the local maori name, or they have foods you’ve simply never heard of before.
rocket: arugula
tasty: cheddar
capsicum: bell pepper
pudding: a self-saucing cake served warm
custard: pudding
courgette: zucchini
choko:chayote
feijoa: a south american fruit that is everywhere in springtime for about two weeks, tastes like bubble gum
pipi:maori name for local shellfish
kumara: a maori sweet potato… fantastic!
kakahi:maori name for the new zealand green mussels (huge! size of your palm! see picture below)
prawn: shrimp (that whole Australian campaign? “Put another shrimp on the barbie…” totally bogus)
swede: rutabaga
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| kakahi – new zealand green mussels |
from the english they’re wild about chutney/jelly sides. a popular addition to burgers here is beetroot. so I’ll marry the trend and give you a recipe for a beetroot jelly… goes great with meats:
beetroot jelly
- cube the beetroot and boil it for 40 minutes. reserve 1 cup of the the beet water. slice and put in a dish for setting in the fridge for a while.
- in a small bowl, add 1 cup of the hot beetroot water and dissolve the port wine jelly crystals. pour this mix over the beetroot cubes.
- put in the fridge and let it set for approximately 4 hours.
I am going to comment on this because i keep on coming back to look at the mussels. those things are like monsters! Sam, do they taste different at all? Gamier maybe because they are bigger?
I think they taste better than regular mussels. And I know MUSSELS, man, I'm a huge fan.
The New Zealand buggers have no fishy taste, very little grit, and a 'creamy' taste. We bought a bag when we were on the Coromandel Penninsular. Dan handed over $10 and they gave him 5 kilos of mussels!! We couldn't finish them in 3 days.
PS – you can surely buy NZ mussels at your grocery store… though it's not exactly eating local. I think that sort of culinary 'non green' exploration is okay once in a while… as a rare treat.
Great Site.
Love the guest bloggers as well!