A local celebration of cultures offers an opportunity for sharing, for reminiscing ... and for feasting, writes Julie Jacobson.
Wander through the supermarket aisles these days and chances are you'll find yourself encountering a geographical cross-section of foodstuffs that even five years ago would have seemed exotic.
In Tauranga's Christopher St, products from China, Korea and Japan vie for space on shelves stacked with everything from sweet anchovies to shark-fin dumplings, pickled radish and fresh soya bean sprouts at the city's popular Asia Market.
Just around the corner on Cameron Rd, there's a steady stream of customers picking up their weekly supply of fresh witloof, rookworst and cumin-seed gouda at Willem Kranenburg's Dutch 'n' Deli, while practically next door Claudia and Grant Lues of Bel Mondo, a specialty store selling gourmet food products from Europe and the Mediterranean, welcome you in with a "buon giorno".
A growing interest in global cuisine has seen a huge increase in the variety and range of products being sold in New Zealand in recent years, with Japanese, Thai, Caribbean and Latin American items experiencing the biggest growth.
Ethnic restaurants - and here you only have to walk down Devonport Road to see Malaysian, Turkish, Indian, Mexican and French - are doing a brisk trade.
"There's definitely been a rise in the number of Kiwis coming in," says Joseph Lee, who runs the Asia Market. "Probably half of our customers would be Kiwi New Zealanders and the other half Asian."
Asian food, along with cuisine from at least a dozen other countries, was showcased at Saturday's multi-cultural festival - the Bay's 12th - held in the Historic Village precinct.
Demand for French, Spanish and Middle Eastern goods
For Claudia Lues, an Italian more used to chorizo than cheerios, the day was a chance to share the traditions of her homeland. Bel Mondo's chef served up yeast-free pizza, made with some of the best Italian ingredients.
She notes that although specialty pasta is still the store's biggest seller, there's an increasing demand for French, Spanish and Middle Eastern goods, something she puts down to the increasing numbers of people travelling and the influence of the media.
"It is generally people who have been overseas and want to recreate their eating experience, and those that you could probably describe as foodies - the ones that read food magazines and watch [food shows on] television," Lues says.
Kranenburg, who opened the original Dutch 'n' Deli 10 years ago, says consumer demand was also behind his decision to open a second store in Papamoa recently. Ethnic diversity - there's now a greater acceptance of mix-and-match cuisines - was another reason.
Alongside that, the stores act as magnets for homesick expats, or "new Kiwis", hungry for a taste of home.
Ingrid Quartel hadn't realised just how ingrained her flavour antennae were until food parcels started arriving from her parents. Dannevirke-born but brought up in The Hague, Quartel moved back to New Zealand five years ago. She now lives in Papamoa with husband Menno and 5-week-old son Dylan.
"In the beginning I thought I could do without all the things I had grown up with," Quartel says. "Then my parents would send something or visitors would bring something over. When those things dry up you realise just how important [they] are."
That importance came to the fore when Dylan was born: "In the Netherlands it's traditional to eat muisjes [biscuits covered with sugared aniseed] to celebrate the birth of a baby," she explains.
"It's absolutely something you have to do - if you have a baby and you don't have it, then it's like it's not real, it's like you're missing something special..."
And there's only one place in Tauranga that sells the little sweets - the Dutch 'n' Deli.
"Real" cheese - tasty gouda, maasdam - is another product the Quartels buy from the store, along with salt licorice and specialty mixed spices for baked treats such as kruidnootjaes (made to celebrate St Nicholas' name day on December 5), and rookworst, "always eaten with sauerkraut".
She says the deli - serving up croquettes at the festival - also plays an important role in facilitating get-togethers for new residents and older members of the Dutch community.
"There's more and more younger families moving here, but it's the older people that see the importance of keeping traditions alive, and the deli helps do that."
There is one thing it doesn't do, however, and that's stock fresh, white asparagus.
"I really miss white asparagus," Quartel laments. "You can get it in the Waikato, but it is freakingly expensive - it's like eating gold."
Not like at home
Out at Mills Reef winery, 26-year-old chef, In Hey Kim, talks nostalgically about drying seaweed back home in Korea and how, since he's been in New Zealand, he's missed his mum's cooking.
Sure, he says, he can still buy the fermented bean paste that's so necessary to Korean cooking here, but it's not the same as the paste his mother makes. Nor is the chilli paste, or the ready-made kimchi - a pungent mix of pickled greens eaten with almost every meal.
"You can get pretty much everything [here], but it's different to home-made, there's a different flavour," Kim says. "And it's like that with vegetables. You can buy what's called Chinese cabbage, but that's not the same as what we have."
He was dishing up two traditional dishes at the festival - japchae: sweet potato or "glass" noodles with vegetables, and boolgogi: marinated, stir-fried beef and veges.
Across town, Alex Aragao explains the difference between Mexican and Brazilian food.
"We're not Mexican. We don't do that Mexican spice thing - we are steak fiends and we love our rice and beans. We go for flavour with lots of garlic and onions."
Central American cuisine, especially Peruvian, is picked to become one of the most influential in the food industry over the next few years. Aragoa says interest has definitely increased recently, with 95 per cent of diners at his Mt Maunganui restaurant now "European" Kiwis.
The restaurant sources most of its ingredients - including farofa, a toasted cassava flour that's served with pinto beans or sprinkled over steak "like you sprinkle parmesan on your pasta" - from Brazil Express, a Brookfield-based importing company.
"We get a lot of Brazilians in here but we're also getting a lot more Kiwis who want to experience the different culture," Aragoa says.
And his pick of the traditional menu? "The chicken hearts appetiser. They're a delicacy in Brazil."
GLOBAL EATS
Bel Mondo: Italian and Mediterranean food, deli products and wine, 68 St John St, Tauranga, ph 579 0968.
Dutch 'n' Deli: Specialty Dutch and Indonesian products,775 Cameron Rd, Tauranga, ph 577 9181; Domain Rd (Palmers Garden World) Papamoa, ph 577 9181.
Asia Market: Chinese, Korean and Japanese foodstuffs, 7 Christopher St, Tauranga, ph 578 3007.
The Gourmet Trader: Selected Mediterranean foodstuffs, Gate Pa shopping precinct, Cameron Rd, ph 578 2023; 199 Mt Maunganui Rd, ph 575 2960.
The Good Food Trading Company: Gourmet Mediterranean products, 35 MacDonald St, Mt Maunganui, ph 574 2362.
Moshim's: Indian supermarket, 504 Cameron Rd, Tauranga, ph 571 4450.
Blackforest Gourmet Butchers: German/specialty sausages, 65 Chapel St, Tauranga, ph 577 9970; 30 Gravatt Rd, Papamoa, ph 575 3340.
Make mine a mixed plate
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