Putting the food on our table : an historical examination of New Zealand foodways

Abstract

This thesis sets out to examine and explore the possibilities of the existence of a New Zealand cuisine in our foodways and how this has developed since pre-contact times. Three questions have been asked in the process of this research. The first: does this society have a distinct cuisine which can be considered uniquely our own? The second: does what we eat reflect a stratified society? Thirdly, as a result of exploring the first two questions a further area is examined: could New Zealand develop an haute cuisine in the foreseeable future? In order to answer these questions the thesis examined New Zealand society from the pre-contact period through to 2007. Much of the research covers documentary materials because of its historical nature. Personal accounts from the diaries of early settlers, newspaper columns and articles and magazine articles were examined. Cookbooks throughout the 20th century were researched. These sources were not considered sufficient so an empirical sample of two chefs, two food writers and two food importers were chosen to interview. The findings enabled me to answer all of the questions. I discovered that New Zealand developed a distinct cuisine by the end of the 19th century. That change in the 1980s caused it to Iose a degree of its uniqueness but it has recovered over the Iast eight years and is slowly regaining its distinctiveness. Throughout the 19th century and up until the 1980s New Zealand did not display cultural culinary stratification. In the Iast twenty-five years this has changed and as a result of political and economic directions it is culturally stratified today. As a result of changes over the Iast twenty-five years the conditions for the development of an haute cuisine are now present in New Zealand society. Such a development, however, is a slow process, taking many decades to occur. It is reliant on a sector of the population having the means to foster it. In New Zealand this sector is relatively small. It could, therefore, take many years to develop.