Blog 11 -- Food & Cuisine

  


New Zealand food has been referred to as Pacific Rim, being influenced by Europe, Asia, and Polynesia. These cultural influences have created a broad range of flavors and foods in restaurants nationwide. The cuisine is largely represented by local ingredients and seasonal variations. Similar to the cuisine of Australia, the food of New Zealand is a diverse, British-based cuisine with Mediterranean and Pacific Rim influences. Historical influences come from Maori culture New American cuisine, Southeast Asian, East Asian, and Indian traditions have become popular since the 1970s. When Europeans first arrived in New Zealand during the late eighteenth century, they brought their own foods with them. Some of these, especially pork and potatoes, were quickly adopted by Maori. Other European foods such as wheat, pumpkin, mutton, sugar, and many types of fruit also became a common part of the Maori diet. American sailors introduced new varieties of sweet potato, which quickly superseded the original varieties of kumara. Today, Maori cuisine is a mixture of Maori tradition, old-fashioned English cooking, and contemporary dishes. 


While the earliest cuisine of the United States was primarily influenced by indigenous Native Americans, the cultural food of the thirteen colonies followed the line of British cookery up until the American Revolution. There was a general disdain for French cookery, even with the French Huguenots in South Carolina and French-Canadians. The Spanish in Florida originally introduced sheep to the New World, but this development never quite reached the North, and there they were introduced by the Dutch and English. n comparison to the northern colonies, the southern colonies were quite diverse in their agricultural diet. Unlike the colonies to the north, the southern colonies did not have a central region of culture. The uplands and the lowlands made up the two main parts of the southern colonies. The slaves and poor of the south often ate a similar diet, which consisted of many of the indigenous New World crops. Salted or smoked pork often supplement the vegetable diet. While some dishes considered typically American may have their origins in other countries, American cooks and chefs have substantially altered them over the years, to the degree that the dishes now enjoyed the world over are considered to be American. Given the United States' large size it has numerous regional variations. The United States' regional cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity and style with each region having its own distinctive cuisine.