New Zealand food is a mouthwatering mix of traditional Maori cuisine, indigenous ingredients, and hearty imports introduced by the European settlers of the late 19th century.
Across these two lush temperate islands, visitors can find something for all tastes. Seafood lovers are particularly blessed, with a rich haul from the Tasman and Pacific depths that includes what New Zealanders claim are the world’s tastiest oysters.
The locals’ obsession with buttery shortcrust pies and rosemary-fragranced lamb roasts will see meat lovers well served during their stay in “The Land of the Long White Cloud”. For vegans, there’s a rich heritage of vegetable-based cuisine, including unusual sourdoughs created with a potato-based “bug”—the local slang for a bread starter.
Hāngī
Hāngī
A mainstay of indigenous New Zealand food is the cooking process known as “hāngī”, pronounced “angie”.
The hāngī involves the creation of an “umu”, or a traditional pit oven. Once dug, hot stones would be laid at the bottom, before baskets of whatever was being cooked would be lowered on top. Traditionally, this would have involved varieties of fish and sweet potato, or kūmara, but nowadays everything from cabbage to lamb is given a subterranean steam.
Hāngī
Sodden cloth is placed on top of the food before the umu is buried beneath a mound of earth. The food steams for up to four hours before being uncovered and served. There’s evidence that this particular style of cooking has been practiced in New Zealand since the late 13th century.
With the hāngī being a relatively intensive method of cooking, the practice of “laying a hāngī” is usually reserved for large gatherings or special occasions.
But don’t worry about having to inveigle yourself into a Maori wedding to taste umu-cooked food. In the traditional New Zealand city of Rotorua, you can taste the deliciously smoky flavor of the hāngī in restaurants or on a visit to a cultural center such as Te Puia.
Pavlova
Pavlova
A sweet meringue cake made fluffy with whipped cream and topped with fruit, the pavlova is one of the most popular desserts that New Zealand is known for. It’s particularly visible at Christmas as a bright white centerpiece, colorfully adorned with vivid kiwis and strawberry slices.
The dessert is named after Anna Pavlova, a famous ballerina who toured New Zealand in 1926. According to New Zealand food lore, an unknown chef from Wellington devised this deliciously simple homage to the ballerina during the same year as her tour.
This origin story, however, is as contentious a point between New Zealand and its larger neighbor, Australia, as the sport of rugby. Whatever the truth, a classic New Zealand pavlova is created using sugar, vanilla, eggs, and vinegar before being baked low and slow to deliver the perfect exterior crisp, and the ideal level of interior chewiness.
Feijoa
Feijoa
The feijoa fruit is found in abundance throughout New Zealand, especially in March when autumn begins in the southern hemisphere. The ground beneath the feijoa trees will be littered with a profusion of egg-shaped, lime-like fruits, their interior cream-colored and quivery in texture.
The feijoa has an elusive flavor that falls somewhere in the sweet and tangy zone between strawberries and pineapples. In the US, feijoa is often marketed as “pineapple guava”.
During autumn, Kiwis – the New Zealanders, not the flightless birds – use this fruit in everything from sumptuous sorbets to everyday muffins. However, if you find one on the ground and can’t wait to try it, just slice it in half and dig in with a spoon.
Kūmara
Kūmara
“Kūmara” is the Maori word for sweet potato. The importance of this starchy root vegetable in the Maori pantry cannot be understated.
In the 13th century, when the Maoris’ Polynesian ancestors first pulled their boats up onto the wild beaches of New Zealand, they brought sweet potatoes with them.
Having navigated by the stars into much cooler climes, the sweet potato was one of the few plants they’d imported that still grew at this latitude. Prayers to the god of agriculture, Rongomātāne, used to be pronounced over any newly planted sweet potato. Carved talismans were left by the plants as protection.
Kūmara
Today, the varieties of sweet potato you’re likely to consume are the more cold weather hardy varieties brought later by the Europeans. To taste kūmara cooked from an “umu”, or pit oven, is to appreciate how they would have tasted for those early Polynesian settlers. Otherwise, it’s served much as any potato anywhere: mashed, roasted, or boiled.
Lamb
Lamb
Meat-eating New Zealanders are open to many kinds of animal protein, but if they were pushed to select a favorite national roast dinner, the vote would likely favor lamb. This southern hemisphere country is world-renowned for its quality lamb, a reputation three centuries in the making.
While sheep, mainly the Romney breed, famously outnumber people in this staggeringly beautiful country, it wasn’t always this way. The British explorer James Cook disembarked the first sheep to taste New Zealand grass in 1773, but sheep farming didn’t blossom as an industry until the middle of the next century.
Wool and lamb soon became two key exports that helped to build New Zealand’s economy. Roast lamb has long been the centerpiece of the traditional Sunday lunch in the country, however, you don’t have to wait until Sunday for yours. You’ll be able to find it, roasted and simply flavored with rosemary on the menu in most traditional-style restaurants.
Green-Lipped Mussels
Green-lipped mussels
While lamb looms large in the modern New Zealand food pantheon, kai moana, or seafood of all shapes and sizes used to be the leading source of protein for the Maori.
Alongside shellfish like tuatua and pipi, green-lipped mussels were a key component of the Polynesian haul. Named for the emerald hue on their shells, these mussels are a relatively large example of their kind. Also sold as powdered health supplements, they’ve hit the headlines recently for their believed anti-inflammatory properties.
However, while they’re pricey abroad, green-lipped mussels are abundant and very affordable on their home turf. Expect to eat them steamed in a bucket and swimming in a white wine and garlic sauce. The Kiwis, drawing on their British heritage, also love to turn them into fritters, fried in a light batter.
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Whitebait Fritters
Whitebait fritters
Whitebait, the fry of several smaller fish species such as anchovies or herring, is hugely popular in New Zealand. They’re served as disc-shaped fritters from northerly Auckland to southerly Fiordland, with a slice of lemon to squeeze over this crisp, delicately fishy morsel.
While the fritter style is European, the tradition of eating these tiny fishes dates back to the Maori. The traditional Maori preparation involves the hāngī, with the whitebait steamed underground in flax baskets over hot stones. Emerging several hours later, the gentle fish flavor is complemented by an earthy smokiness.
Manuka Honey
Manuka honey
A robustly flavorful variety of honey derived from the nectar of the manuka tree, Manuka honey is a sweet titan of New Zealand food.
Native to New Zealand, the shrubby manuka tree is also known as the “tea tree”, the name attributable to Captain Cook who reportedly would brew the leaves for his tea. Manuka has long been used by the Maori for its powerful antibacterial properties, among other potential health benefits.
This rich, viscous honey is deployed to delicious effect in Maori dishes such as parao parai—a crispy fried bread that’s sweetened with a honey glaze. Meats steamed in an underground umu are also often glazed with manuka honey, while the Maori’s rēwena bread is delicious with a drizzle.
Rēwena Bread
Rēwena bread
Rēwena bread is traditional Maori sourdough. What makes it uniquely Maori is the method of bread starter that’s used—a fermented potato starter colloquially referred to as “the bug”. The bread dates back to the 19th century and the arrival of the Europeans.
The resultant potato/flour hybrid loaf is soft and chewy with an earthy sourdough tang. It’s often eaten buttered and drizzled with honey for a quick, delicious breakfast option. Rēwena bread is probably the most successful example in New Zealand of European techniques melding with Maori culinary invention.
Fish & Chips
Fish & chips
Almost as important to New Zealand’s food culture as it is to the United Kingdom’s, fish and chips is a culinary innovation introduced by the British in the mid-1900s.
As it’s surrounded by such rich seas, seafood has always played a central role in nutrition for New Zealand’s inhabitants. When the Europeans arrived with potatoes, all the pieces were now in place for fish and chips to become the dominant takeaway food of modern New Zealand.
As in the UK, the fish is served in a light, crisp batter alongside chunky cut fries. It’s often doused in salt and vinegar and traditionally wrapped in newspaper.
While you’ll typically find haddock or cod in your UK fish and chips, in New Zealand, you can select from hoki, blue warehou, tarakihi, or, for a premium, blue cod.
Mince & Cheese Pie
Mince & cheese pie
Five-inch meat pies are giants of the New Zealand food scene. It’s almost impossible not to encounter enticing piles of these shortcrust morsels as you travel around the country. As with New Zealand’s beloved fish and chips, pies emigrated to the country in the late 19th century in the recipe cards of the British settlers.
Among all the many varieties available, it’s the mince and cheese pie that has been elevated to the status of a “cultural icon”. This flaky, buttery container of sharp cheddar and Worcestershire Sauce-imbued beef mince has become the go-to comfort food for the nation.
They’re delicious whether purchased from a gas station or wrapped in wax paper at an artisan Wellington bakery. And stay alert for pies signaling success at “The Bakels”—the name for the country’s major pie awards.
Pāua
Pāua
The giant sea snail “pāua” or abalone has long been an important component of Maori seafood. It’s considered “taonga” or “cultural treasure”. The Maori were quietly delighted when the early European settlers embraced the abalone only for its shell and left the meat, which can initially be rather chewy, to the Indigenous people.
However, the Maori knew the methods to make pāua more palatable. Today, it’s served smoky from the barbeque, frittered, or minced into a rich onion and cream sauce.
Pieces of the pearlescent shells, their color indicative of the variety of seaweed that the snails have been feeding on, were used by the Maori to represent eyes in traditional carvings or as a dazzling, darting fishing lure. Pāua is still very popular as a component in traditional Maori jewelry.
Bluff Oysters
Bluff oysters
A delicacy off the southern tip of the South Island, Bluff Oysters are considered a culinary jewel of New Zealand food. They thrive in the chilly depths 150 feet below in the Foveaux Strait, where the conditions found here produce slow-growing bivalves that are large and prolific. Oyster season in New Zealand is between March and August.
The Maori first plundered this natural bounty when they arrived in 1250 AD, long before these plump, sweet, and saline morsels earned the international renown they enjoy today.
While purists will savor the distinct flavor of the oysters raw, they’re available as a creamy seafood chowder, or dazzle when grilled and topped with bacon, Worcestershire Sauce, and ketchup as per the Kilpatrick preparation. Alternatively, just shoot them with a squeeze of lemon and wash them down with a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.
ANZAC biscuits
ANZAC biscuits
ANZAC is an acronym for “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps”—a First World War army corps comprising soldiers from Australasia. The ANZAC biscuits are addictively delicious oat cookies originally sold as a way to support the war effort.
Made with oats, flour, butter, sugar, and shredded coconut, they traveled well and were the perfect treats to send overseas for the troops. The smell of these cookies baking in the oven is a mouthwatering memory shared by many New Zealanders today.
Today, they’re omnipresent on grocery store shelves in the country, a sweet reminder of the way familiar flavors, even across great distances, foster human connection.
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Tauranga
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