The no-nonsense comfort food is enjoying something of a renaissance, and Anna King Shahab has come up with some simple meal starter ideas to spark your mince-spiration. T-paper, flour, mince. The grocery shopping priorities of our nation were revealed unceremoniously when Covid-19 made “panic buying” a household phrase earlier this year. It wasn’t all doom … Read more
Both pigs and humans alike should rejoice over the High Court’s ruling on farrowing crates, writes University of Otago law lecturer Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere. If you know anything about pigs, it’ll likely be that despite their slovenly and biblically-dubious reputation, actually, they’re quite clever creatures. As smart as dogs! As smart as chimpanzees! At the … Read more
Finally, New Zealand is getting country-of-origin food labelling. But the recently released draft regulations are a missed opportunity to provide consumers with clarity around where their food comes from and how it’s produced, writes Hilary Pearson of Freedom Farms. It seems a bit laborious to rehash the already storied history of the Consumers’ Right to … 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
It’s finally true: Mercury Plaza is closing its doors. Josie Adams and Tina Tiller went for a last meal at the iconic Karangahape Road food court. Mercury Plaza is known for beloved restaurants like Chinese Cuisine, Maruten Ramen, and E-Sarn WOK. Delicious though they all are, it has offered far more to the masses in … Read more
Welcome to the Cheat Sheet, a clickable, shareable, bite-sized FAQ on the news of the moment. Today, it’s all about African swine fever and the pending aporkalypse. TL;DR: It’s “the biggest animal disease outbreak the planet the planet has ever faced”, and Kiwi pork lovers need to do their bit to protect our local pigs. African … Read more
The censorship of a food writer’s Instagram post of piggy trotters and ears on a kitchen bench is a disturbing example of how disconnected from our food we really are. The other day while I was mindlessly scrolling Instagram, I came across an image posted by London-based Ukrainian food writer Olia Hercules. My rapidly swiping … Read more
In which Al Brown praised Simon Day’s grillin’ skills and we got it on tape… and then disaster struck. But don’t worry, the recipes survive. If legendary chef Al Brown demands you cook his own recipes for him, you spend all night in the kitchen. And when he tells you how delicious everything is and … Read more
Simon Day has a meal with a criminal narcissist. This post was originally published July 10 2018 Somewhere between the sweet-and-sour tripe and the dramatic dissection of the five-spiced suckling pig, we discover that our entrancing new acquaintance named Alex is actually called Wayne, and is one of New Zealand’s most prolific conmen. Over the … Read more
Alarmed by the disconnection between his food and its source, Simon Day visits the home of his bacon. I‘ve eaten a lot of bacon. And roast pork shoulder with crispy crackling. I’ve used cured pig’s cheek to make carbonara. Glazed ham at every Christmas. And barbecued so many sausages. But I’d never recognised how disconnected … Read more
A select committee has proposed limiting the kinds of products the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill will apply to, and plenty of folk ain’t happy about it. What’s the story? Back in 2016, then Green MP Steffan Browning introduced a member’s bill that proposed mandatory country-of-origin labelling (CoOL) on all … Read more
Simon Day has a meal with a criminal narcissist. Somewhere between the sweet-and-sour tripe and the dramatic dissection of the five-spiced suckling pig, we discover that our entrancing new acquaintance named Alex is actually called Wayne, and is one of New Zealand’s most prolific conmen. Over the course of the evening, and four courses of … Read more