Prickly Fern

Unless you come from England, you will have an adjustment period to the food here in New Zealand.
If you're happy with greasy fish'n chips, and Asian take-out you'll be -as we say in kiwi land- "sweet as".
But if you're looking forward to the fresh foods and nice restaurants that are supposed to be abundant here, you need to learn hard and fast.

Without doubt fish'n chips is the national take-out food. There's good ones, and there's ugly ones. The ugly ones usually taste of burnt oil and nothing else. The good ones are expensive. Second national fast-food would be the pie. Pastry filled with mince (ground beef), mince and cheese, chicken or vegetables. Make sure you be careful buying pie from a petrol station. Chances are you'll spend the rest of your week barfing. Home made pies are usually the way to go, but be careful don't burn yourself. The hot filling could be painful for the unsuspecting hungry soul.
Other take-out options are mainly kiwi-ized Asian food, your favorite burger chain joint, and unsuccessful executions of "Middle Eastern" kebab joints. One thing to remember when you are after take-out: New Zealand restaurants and takeouts have a very bad rep on the hygiene and food quality department. Even if you have never had food poisoning in your life, I guarantee that you'll have in New Zealand (this issue is related to the quality of service industry which will be handled in an other article).

Kiwis love their sweets. Nothing wrong with that. But they put it in everything! You'll find that most sauces have very high amounts of sugar. In fact most canned foods like baked beans and spaghetti have high sugar levels. It does not stop there. Let's say you're on a road trip and decided to stop at the cafe to have a refreshing sandwich. You spotted a nice looking bagette filled with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and your favorite cold cut. You are happy to find a familiar face in a remote land. But as soon as you take that big bite you come to realize the insides of this sandwich is swamped with some kind of a sweet sauce. And I am not talking about a hint of sweetness in the vein of chutney or radish. This is dessert material stuff.

When you're getting take-out, you'll be asked to pay extra for the condiments. Be it mayonnaise, hot sauce, or soya sauce. I am not mentioning ketchup here because except for Mc Donald's, and maybe other American burger joints, you will be presented with tomato sauce, which is a sad watery sweet sauce.

If you go out dining on national holidays you might get charged extra! Read the signs at the doors that advise these.

New Zealand's main export is meat and produce. You would think that people of New Zealand are so lucky to have this abundance of great food. Wrong. All New Zealand prime produce and meat go overseas. People are left with not-so-great stuff at high prices. Especially supermarkets are notorious for carrying pre-frozen fruits and vegetables. It might make sense to some people in economics sense but to me people are deprived of their own goods. Honestly, vegetable bags from frozen sections taste much better than most vegetables from produce sections of most supermarkets. Bottom line: Avoid buying fruit and vegetables from supermarkets. Try to follow local farmers' markets. Same thing with meat. You have to find a good butcher to taste the good New Zealand meat (good luck).

Traditional New Zealand cooking is a very simple approach: Roasted meat with three vegetables.
The meat can be pork or lamb, the vegetables are predominantly peas, potatoes (spuds) and kumara (kind of sweet potato). They are simply roasted in the oven and served with gravy. On a special occasion you'll have the Pavlova, a kiwi dessert made of egg whites, sugar, cream, and kiwi or passion fruit.