New Zealand cooking is built on ingredients rather than technique: lamb, seafood, dairy and fruit grown in a climate that suits them. The Maori tradition adds a cooking method nobody else has, and the cafe culture is strong enough that small towns have good coffee.
The New Zealand travel guide: where to go and what to see →
Large, sweet mussels farmed in the Marlborough Sounds, steamed with white wine and garlic.
They are native to New Zealand and farmed rather than dredged, which keeps them clean and consistent. They are bigger than the blue mussels sold in Europe, and the frozen half-shell version is far inferior to a fresh pot steamed open.
Meat and vegetables cooked in a pit with heated stones, covered with earth. The Maori method, and it takes hours.
The food is wrapped and laid on hot stones, then buried so it steams rather than roasts. It gives a smoky, earthy flavour that nothing else reproduces. It is cooked for gatherings, so you are more likely to encounter it at a marae or a festival than in a restaurant.
Tiny translucent fish bound in egg and fried into thin fritters. A West Coast delicacy, and expensive.
The whitebait are juvenile fish caught in river mouths, and the season is short and tightly regulated. A proper fritter is mostly fish with just enough egg to hold it together — a fritter that is mostly egg is a rip-off, and locals will say so.
New Zealand lamb, roasted with rosemary and garlic. The country exports most of it, so eat it there.
New Zealand is the world's largest exporter of lamb, and the domestic price reflects that it is a primary product rather than a luxury. Spring lamb is available from late winter, and it is grass-fed, which is why the fat tastes different from grain-fed lamb.
A green fruit with a perfumed, almost minty flavour. In season for a few weeks in autumn and barely exported.
It is native to South America but grown commercially almost exclusively in New Zealand. The fruit does not keep, which is why it is nearly impossible to find abroad. It is eaten by cutting it in half and scooping, and it also makes a very good cider.
Vanilla ice cream with chunks of honeycomb toffee. The national flavour.
The honeycomb is made by boiling sugar and golden syrup with baking soda, which aerates it into a brittle foam. It is stirred through vanilla ice cream while still brittle, so it stays crunchy. The name is New Zealand dialect for honeycomb.
A meringue dessert with a crisp shell and a marshmallow centre, topped with cream and kiwifruit.
The New Zealand version uses caster sugar and a little vinegar, and is dried slowly in a low oven so the middle stays soft. Topping it with kiwifruit and passionfruit is the local choice, and the rivalry with Australia over who invented it is ongoing.
The New Zealand Marmite, which is a different product from the British one and the subject of a national argument.
It was unavailable for over a year after the Christchurch earthquakes damaged the only factory, and the shortage was a national event. It is darker and thicker than the British version, and the two are not interchangeable.
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