Aotearoa New Zealand: More than ‘Middle Earth’

I grew up in Whanganui in Aotearoa New Zealand. (The Whanganui River has been called the ‘Rhine of New Zealand’!!) I am a Pākehā (white) New Zealander and my family have been in New Zealand for six generations. Like many ‘Kiwis’ I have travelled extensively. I have lived in the UK and am now in Australia. 
 
(I have been to New York but not to MVB. My connection is that I am writing a history of the New York Herald Tribune World Youth Forum, delegates of which attended MVB in 1959 and 1960 – adding to the diversity of the school!) 
 
New Zealand is a green and pleasant land, with few people (just over 4 million) and many sheep. When I was growing up there was only one motorway (freeway) – a short stretch just outside Auckland. Even today, the main road through the North Island, connecting our biggest city (Auckland) with the capital (Wellington) is only one lane in each direction for the most part. Never trust google-maps’ travel times in New Zealand… add at least an hour for negotiating the bends in the roads, getting stuck in a line of traffic behind a big truck or tractor, or navigating a mob of sheep crossing from one field to another. 
 
Now famous as ‘Middle Earth’ of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, New Zealand is much more than that. British settlers and other immigrants (or invaders) arrived in the nineteenth century to a land populated by Māori iwi. Colonisation wreaked its usual havoc on the indigenous population, in spite of (or sometimes because of) the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between the British government and some Māori chiefs in 1840. Māori are resilient however and, like other indigenous peoples, fought back and survived. Although Māori have always been visible and proactive, there has been a change over the last decade. For example, when I travel home to New Zealand now, I notice the presence of Māori language in public broadcasting and in other arenas. It is not just the ‘haka’ now. 
 
New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote (in 1893). It has a strong social welfare system. There have been Māori members of parliament since the late 19th century. It has an anti-nuclear policy. It has the phenomenon of Jacinda Ardern, the third female Prime Minister of New Zealand and someone who has stood in stark contrast to some other world leaders for her humanity and empathy. 
 
I love going home to New Zealand to have hokey-pokey ice cream (best in the world); to see the ferns, the rimu, rata, kauri and manuka of the New Zealand bush; and to travel from seaside to mountain, via forest, boiling mudpools, lakes and idiosyncratic small towns in a day (sheep trucks notwithstanding). 
 
Living outside New Zealand, I do miss the icecream, and I am always arguing with my Australian partner about who invented the pavlova (a dessert claimed by both nations as a symbol). When I was pregnant with my first child and living in the UK, I had a craving for ‘Chocolate Crackles’… a cookie made with rice bubbles, cocoa and ‘kremelta’. Kremelta is copha, a sort of coconut extract, and was (unbelievably!) not available in the UK. There was no proper substitute… I even rang the New Zealand High Commission to ask (such was the desperation of a pregnant Kiwi, 12000 miles from home). Fortunately, before my second pregnancy I moved to Australia, where I could make Chocolate Crackles to my heart’s content. 

Editor's Note: Go to The Recipe Box for the Chocolate Crackles recipe!

---