Bananas are unequivocally the best fruit in the world, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind, writes Alice Webb-Liddall. I was about 15 when I realised that halftime banana cake wasn’t a tradition outside of my family. On the day of an All Blacks game a banana cake would always be whipped … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Horticulture industry facing labour crisis, details of new cases spark concern, and Canterbury candidate under fire for local government record. Fears are growing that fruit will simply rot on the vine this season, because nobody will be there to pick it. Plenty of this sort of … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: OMV cleared by EPA for offshore well, charity raising alarm over state house sensors, and panel of climate commissioners appointed. In a controversial decision, OMV have been cleared by the Environmental Protection Agency to drill a well off the coast of Otago. A comprehensive report on … Read more
A meatless pulled pork substitute is taking the vegan market by storm. The Spinoff did a deep and serious dive into jackfruit, the most meaty of fruits, to bring you the facts. I first encountered “pulled jackfruit” on a trip to my local Mexican joint. A long-time vegetarian with a long-time craving for meat, I … Read more
Sure, it’s not as easy to love as the versatile lemon or the alluring tangelo, but the grapefruit has its place, says Amanda Thompson – and that place is on your toast. All over my dreary winter town, small gold and orange suns are bursting forth over fences, over hedges, casting themselves to the ground. … Read more
Tara Ward sets out on a valiant quest to find the best apple in Aotearoa. The idea that every apple is a good apple is fake news. We’ve all got stories about shit experiences with apples, when it looked good on the outside but it was a floury disaster zone on the inside, or it … Read more
With children’s vegetable intake in decline, decision makers are too focused on pointing the finger at parents, a new study suggests. When it comes to children’s nutrition, key players in our food system are stuck on the idea of individual responsibility. That’s a key finding of new research that surveys decision-makers about their views on New … Read more
Do you lose your shit when you can’t get cherries in July? No. So why is everyone grumbling about the so-called avocado shortage? “AVOCADO CRISIS”, the headlines scream. “Soaring prices force cafes to stop selling avocado dishes”. Yes, apparently New Zealand has been brought to its very knees by an unprecedented shortage of the fleshy … Read more
Don’t let those brazen feijoas steal the limelight – guavas are also ubiquitous at this time of year, and their flavour is just as curiously delicious. Yes, I know, the feijoas are haemorrhaging again. I like feijoas but they have a habit of throwing themselves at you. One of my neighbours said ‘If you are … Read more
Inspired by the recently publicised onion-related peril of sausage sizzles, The Spinoff goes deep into the produce aisle and finds that getting your 5+ a day can be a risky business. A few weeks ago, a story came out that shocked right-thinking Antipodeans to their very cores. Bunnings Warehouse had issued a ‘serving suggestion’ advising … Read more
Hawke’s Bay juice makers The Apple Press say they don’t care about looks, just “good taste and low-waste”. Jihee Junn talks to co-founder Ross Beaton about how his innovative juice company came about. ‘You eat with your eyes first’ is how the old adage goes, with science proving over the years that visual stimuli really … Read more
An ode to the humble feijoa, the Che Guevara of the fruit world. New Zealand in the late 1970s was basically a socialist paradise. Healthcare and education were free, oil prices were high enough for the government to introduce an insane rationing policy (Carless Days anyone?), and the advent of One Day cricket played by … Read more