Breakfast. A typical New Zealand breakfast is simple. Kiwis start off with cereal and toast accompanied by a cup of coffee, tea, freshly made orange juice, or local milk. Unlike Americans, cooked breakfast is not very common except during the weekends.
Traditional New Zealand dishes include lamb, pork and venison, salmon, crayfish, bluff oysters, whitebait, mussels, scallops, kumara (sweet potato), kiwifruit, tamarillo and pavlova. Pavolva is a highly contested item in the rivalry between New Zealand and Australia as both countries lay claim to its origins.
Bacon and egg, steak and cheese and potato-top pies are Kiwi classics. However, salmon and bacon(opens in new window), butter chicken, bacon and egg, lamb and mint and venison pies are award-winners at the annual New Zealand pie awards(opens in new window).
Four Good Foods aims to create a new value chain producing fine charcuterie products with new flavours. The meat will be naturally fermented without added nitrates or chemicals.
Christmas lunches commonly include hot meat, with lamb and ham being the most popular, root vegetables such as potato and kūmara (sweet potato), and a variety of salads. As appropriate for the often warm summer temperatures of the day, it has become popular to serve cold meats and seafood.
Beer is the most popular alcoholic drink in New Zealand, accounting for 63% of available alcohol for sale. New Zealand is ranked 21st in beer consumption per capita, at around 75.5 litres per person per annum.
In New Zealand, we have fish and chips.
It's not in exactly the same league. Our Australian and British friends would point out we don't even say “fish and chips”, that we say “fush and chups”. We laugh and console ourselves that they say “feesh and cheeps” or “fash and chaps”.
Iceland comes out on top!
Their breakfast is high in protein, fibre, and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and low in fat and salt.
Pavlova. Ownership disputes aside, the pavlova has got to be New Zealand's best renowned dish. It's a prominent component of various Christmas feasts, dinner parties and summer barbecues.
In the early 1900s, cartoonists started to use images of the kiwi bird to represent New Zealand as a country. During the First World War, New Zealand soldiers were referred to as 'kiwis', and the nickname stuck. Eventually, the term Kiwi was attributed to all New Zealanders, who proudly embraced the moniker.
Dinner is the main meal of the day and is eaten around 6-7 p.m. which is early compared to some countries. Dinner dishes are usually made up of potatoes (or another form of carbohydrates), vegetables, and a meat of choice.
If you are 18 years or older you can enter any licensed premises and buy and drink alcohol, as long as you can provide acceptable proof of age identification such as a driver licence, Hospitality New Zealand (HANZ) 18+ card or passport.
There is no doubt New Zealanders are some of the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. This tiny nation is the inventor of the flat white and, for the customers of the thousands of cafes dotted around the country, long may it rule. Yet coffee hasn't always been number one.
In the Māori language, Santa Claus is called Hana Kōkō! One popular present for Christmas in New Zealand are 'jandals'.
New Zealanders, or "Kiwis" as they are called, have been shaped by their isolation. Today, most Kiwis are no longer farmers, with 86 percent of the population living in cities.
“Mere Kirihimete” is a common greeting used in New Zealand, especially when celebrating a Māori Christmas, and is an adaptation of the English greeting, "Merry Christmas".
Along with root vegetables, they also introduced Kiore (the Polynesian rat) and Kurī (the Polynesian dog), both valuable sources of meat. Māori hunted a wide range of birds (such as mutton birds and moa), collected seafood and gathered native ferns, vines, palms, fungi, berries, fruit and seeds.