Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 13.18 Kawhia: Countryside & Kiwi Cuisine

18.A A Late Autumn Hillside with Sheep below a Ridge of Trees at Mid-Day

Last Saturday, after several days of rain, the skies cleared over the North Island. Jean and I decided we’d drive over to a small town, Kawhia (pronounced ‘Káfeeya’), which is about an hour away from Te Awamutu (TA). Kawhia is on the Tasman Coast and we got there mostly by traveling the ever-sinuous State Route 31.

Now that we’re in the late autumn, the New Zealand sun is low in the northern sky. Even at mid-day there were long shadows everywhere. The Waikato hillsides were greener than ever, abetted by all the rain we’d just had. But the yellowish hue of the late autumn sunlight probably enhanced the green. As a counterpoint, the sky was a brilliant blue. But as sunny as it was, we wore jackets as protection against the brisk shade and the brisker west wind. If we’d had a frost, we could have called this an ‘Indian summer’ day. It would have been a splendid day to bottle up and bring out in winter.

But winter in Kawhia and in much of New Zealand is nothing like in, say, Canada or Russia. In Kawhia, right along the sea, frosts are unlikely or transient, even in winter. The accompanying photos give you a sense of the rolling countryside between TA and Kawhia. Kawhia, with a population of about 400, has a shabby-looking general store, but otherwise the community is tidy, if humble. In the summer the village serves a considerably expanded population. In and about Kawhia there are many, many cottages any one of which a Kiwi would call a ‘bach’, as in ‘bachelor’. The bach, as the term suggests, was originally an escape for guys who wanted to get out into the 'bush'—the back country—but wanted a roof, not a tent, over their heads. In more recent years the typical bach has become less rustic. No doubt most bachs in Kawhia, for example, have indoor plumbing, a modest kitchenette, and so forth. But what we saw in Kawhia is closer to what used to be the norm rather than what is now fashionable in New Zealand.

At church on Sunday we were asked whether we’d gone to the fish and chips shop in Kawhia. It happened not to have been open. But the village café was. We would travel out to the ocean beach—with its black sand beaches and sand dunes—but before doing so we paused at the café, Jean ordering her customary chai latte and I ordering a berry smoothie. Chai lattes and all kinds of coffee offerings were available even in a small café in this out-of-the-way Kiwi village.

Cafés and coffee houses were an unexpected, customary offering in the Kiwi cultural landscape. Not that I’d given much thought to Kiwi culinary habits before coming to New Zealand. Cafés and coffee houses are to be found all over the country, even out in the country, along the roadside. Cafés can be found in department stores and at bus terminals, at bakeries, and adjacent to factory entrances. I’ve even been at a café in a Christchurch flower shop. Cafés can be quite modest or they can be quite tony, offering not only beverages and meals, but books, kitchen gadgets, and cooking classes.

Cafés typically offer breakfast ('brekkie' in Kiwiese) and lunch selections. The beverage offerings tend to be extensive. The food offerings, typically, are more limited. A dirt-cheap and perhaps suspect lunch offering would be available at NZ$10. More typically a $12 or $15 offering would be regarded as the deal of the day. One goes to a counter, puts in a beverage or food order (or both), takes a number banner to a table, and then first the beverages and then the food will be delivered to your table, usually by someone in their teens or twenties.

Whether ordering in a café or restaurant, we’ve never been disappointed. The food has been invariably fresh and tasty. My one culinary disappointment in New Zealand has been the pies or what Kiwis consider pies. When Kiwis talk about ‘pies’ they are talking about single-serving pies, as opposed to so-called ‘family pies’, which are sliced up and served. Moreover, when Kiwis talk about pies they’re almost always talking about meat pies. Kiwis, after all, adhere to pie-making traditions and expectations that come from Great Britain, which has a tradition of producing meat pies. In some ways meat pies were a kind of fast food long before ‘fast food’ entered the lexicon.

So bakeries and pie shops are to be found across New Zealand purveying meat pies and beverages to the fast food crowd. Cafés purvey such pies. Even New Zealand’s McDonald’s, whose McCafé sections feature sweet pastries, has decided to sell a so-called ‘Georgie Pie’. This meat pie is to be test marketed at an initial 11 locations in New Zealand, including at the McDonald’s in Te Awamutu. The Georgie Pie is a pie to which McDonald’s acquired the rights when New Zealand's Georgie Pie fast-food chain went defunct in the late 1990s.

Hopefully, the resurrected Georgie Pie will satisfy the palate and fortify the health of Kiwi customers. My one encounter with a commercial Kiwi meat pie wasn’t pleasant. I thought I’d purchased a steak and mushroom pie. Apparently that’s what I was given, but there were no steak chunks or even mushroom pieces under the tasty crust. Instead there was a hot meat slurry, not the robust sort of thing I'd anticipated. When I related my experience to some locals, I was told I’d been given a ‘minced’ pie. But I hadn’t ordered a ‘minced pie’, which I also saw on offer. Whatever happened, I didn't become a fan of the Kiwi meat pie. If the Georgie Pie that McDonald’s purveys is a minced pie, I have to wonder how successful it will be. The minced pie seems so out of character with the robustness of Kiwi cultural preferences.

There are plenty of places offering once-exotic foods now commonly available throughout New Zealand. Even in a small town like Te Awamutu, we have white-tablecloth Indian and Thai restaurants, both good, at least in our one-time visits to each. There is a Turkish kebab place. There are several sushi shops as well as so-called ‘Chinese smorgasbord’ places, which also offer fish and chips. At least two take-out eateries specialize in offering roast dishes, including roast lamb, of course. In TA there are also several pubs, including one called Fahrenheit, that we’ve yet to patronize. And, as I mentioned earlier, there are numerous cafes, the foremost including Churchills, Robert Harris (a national chain), the Central Café, and the Red Kitchen. There are no Starbucks in Te Awamutu but they’re to be found in the largest cities and in tourist magnets like Rotorua and Queenstown.

In all these culinary offerings, is there any one menu item that can be claimed as uniquely Kiwi? Before answering the question, let me get back to pies. No, I’m not obsessed with pies, but I would be derelict were I to neglect mentioning that at least some New Zealand bakeries do sell fruit pies (not ‘family pies’ but individual-serving-sized pies). As it happens, New Zealand’s Supreme Pie Award in 2011 and 2012 was conferred upon Viands, whose main bakery is in Kihikihi, the small town next to Te Awamutu. Viands has a branch in TA, where I occasionally award Jean and myself Viands’ award-winning gingered peach & pear pie or spiced plum, port & apple pie.

Something called the ‘Pavlova’, a fruit-and-cream-topped, round meringue-like cake serves as the one New Zealand culinary creation claimed by Kiwis. Alas, the Pavlova is also claimed by Aussies as having originated in Australia. The dessert is usually topped by kiwifruit, passion fruit, and strawberries, but other fruits can top the cake. If I’m to believe what I've read in Wikipedia, the Kiwis appear to have the better claim to having originated (and embraced) the dish. The best Pavlova I’ve had since arriving in New Zealand was at the Māori feast that Jean and I attended in Rotorua. The Pavlova is served on festive occasions throughout New Zealand and Australia.

The dessert is named in honor of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, who performed in Australia and New Zealand during a tour in the mid-1920s. Kiwis plausibly claim that a Wellington hotel chef confected the dessert in the ballerina’s honor in 1926.

As it happens, this coming Sunday afternoon Jean and I plan on attending a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite in Hamilton. The ballet company performing the Nutcracker will be the Moscow Ballet La Classíque. It’s unlikely that any new desserts will ensue from this appearance of the Moscow Ballet. But we’re rather confident that the performance will be top-rate. Russian culture has produced masters and masterpieces of ballet for two centuries. Kiwis still know that. And if you plan on coming to New Zealand, look forward to savoring a Pavlova on a special occasion… and patronizing cafés on any day.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

PS. Kiwi cuisine will soon be on offer in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A local entrepreneur intends to launch a food-truck business called Drift, which will offer savory pies, ANZAC biscuits (or cookies), and flat whites (a Kiwi coffee specialty), among other Kiwi favorites. This is reported online (3 May 2017) in OnMilwaukee.com.