I really, really hate beets. And here I am living in a country that eats beets the way we eat tomatoes in the U.S. Beets are everywhere. They show up in dips, sandwiches, salads, relish, and horrors, ingredients in cakes, brownies and tarts. To prove they are ubiquitous, let me introduce you to the McDonald’s Kiwiburger. It has a beet on it. A beet. Yikes!
They are also quite fond of sweet potatoes, which they call kumara. All winter they are featured in magazine recipes, on restaurant menus, and presented in overflowing bins in the vegetable aisle. I don’t hate sweet potatoes. I just feel better when they are not around.
There are other random foods that always seem to be available such as cilantro, rhubarb, watercress, and white Swiss chard, which they refer to as Silver Beet. (Again with the beets.) I like all of these foods. I just find it odd that they seem to be staples.
I have already done a discourse on sausages. Sausage is their go to summer barbecue meat. Easily, 50% of the meat aisle is sausages.
In the summer, cherries are everywhere. Just regular sweet cherries, nothing exotic. Although I did run across Rainier cherries at a fruit and vegetable market. The owners, a young couple who are very happy when I show up with my wallet, decided to try and sell them. I think it was going badly until I came along and bought half of their inventory. They called them white cherries and I guess that is somewhat accurate. But I explained they were called Rainier cherries and that they are considered premium cherries in the U.S. (They also cost a fortune in the U.S. Here they went for a song because no one knows what they are.)
Plums are also very popular. For the past month or more, roadside signs have appeared offering plums for sale by local farmers. There are several varieties and they are used in yogurt, ice cream, cakes and pies. There are some more exotic fruits like tamarillo and feijoa, which are fruits from South America.. These arrive in the autumn and people just go crazy for them, particularly feijoa, which is also made into yogurts and desserts.
After all that, God bless them, but they still do not understand tomatoes. You can buy them here but they are fairly bland. I have not seen an heirloom tomato anywhere. Their use of them in sauces and salsas tend to reflect the blandness. Here is a good rule–don’t buy their ketchup. Seek out Heinz.
A Yank Among the Kiwis 