What do people eat in New Zealand?
New Zealanders eat cereal or toast for breakfast, a light lunch like a sandwich or a bakery pie, and dinner, often called tea, at 18:00 to 19:00. A mince and cheese pie is about 540 kcal.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
On weekdays breakfast is quick: cereal, toast or porridge with tea or coffee. Weet-Bix with milk is the classic bowl, and toast often gets Marmite, the local yeast spread. Two Weet-Bix with milk come to about 200 kcal. At the weekend people go out for a cooked brunch at a café.
Lunch
Lunch is light, because dinner is the main meal. It is a sandwich, a salad, sushi, which is far more common here than in Britain, or a meat pie from the bakery. A pie has flaky pastry and fillings like steak and cheese, mince and cheese or bacon and egg, about 540 kcal for a mince and cheese pie.
Dinner
Dinner, which many still call tea, is eaten at about 18:00 to 19:00. The old standard is meat and three veg: lamb, beef or chicken with potatoes or kūmara, the local sweet potato, and vegetables. Fish and chips is one of the most common takeaway dinners. In summer, dinner moves outside to the barbecue, and guests bring a plate and their own drinks.
Starters
Starters are rare at home. At a barbecue or a party there is a bowl of chips with kiwi onion dip, and green lipped mussels or kūmara chips, about 250 kcal a bowl, at a café. A hāngī, meat and vegetables cooked for hours on hot stones in a pit, is a whole feast rather than a first course, about 650 kcal a plate.
Desserts
Pavlova, a meringue with a crisp shell and a soft middle, topped with whipped cream and fruit, is on every Christmas table, about 250 kcal a slice. Hokey pokey, vanilla ice cream with lumps of honeycomb toffee, is the flavour New Zealand gave the world. Morning and afternoon tea bring slices and biscuits: lolly cake, Afghans, lamingtons and ANZAC biscuits, about 120 kcal each.
Drinks
Coffee culture is strong, and the flat white, an espresso with steamed milk and little foam, is claimed by New Zealand, about 120 kcal a cup. L&P, Lemon and Paeroa, is the local soft drink. Wine means Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Central Otago Pinot Noir, and beer comes cold at the barbecue.
Street food
Street food is the takeaway shop. Fish and chips, often snapper or blue cod, come wrapped in paper and get eaten on the beach, about 1000 kcal for a full serving. At school fundraisers and weekend events there is a sausage sizzle: a sausage in a slice of white bread with onions and tomato sauce, sold to raise money.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Dinner is called tea, and morning tea is a real break with food. Guests are asked to bring a plate, and BYO means you bring your own wine. A sausage in one slice of white bread counts as lunch. Pavlova is claimed by both New Zealand and Australia, and nobody has given in.