Unlearning culinary snobbery
On rethinking cooking shortcuts, more supermarket duopoly shake ups and a surprising peanut butter snack.
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter produced in partnership with Boring Oat Milk. Written by me, Charlotte Muru-Lanning. It’s lovely to have you here!
Over the weekend I read this excellent essay titled In Defence of Garlic in a Jar: How Food Snobs Almost Ruined My Love of Cooking, by Gabrielle Drolet. It’s a really beautiful articulation of how disdain for pre-cut produce or ingredient shortcuts is in many ways an unintentional dismissal of people with disabilities and their needs. For plenty of people, including the writer who has nerve damage, cooking shortcuts (“pre-” ingredients) are a lifeline.
That culinary scorn from celebrity chefs, home cooks and food writers is most commonly geared toward garlic in a jar, but if I think back on personal experience, other cooking shortcuts like pre-cut carrots, bags of shredded cheese, bouillon cubes or boxed cake mix are often considered synonymous with laziness and bad taste. “The culture that surrounds cooking today is one that lends itself well to casual ableism. It’s a culture that prizes specific ways of doing things over others, constantly pitting methods and recipes against one another,” Drolet writes. It’s just one of the many ways that eating at home or eating at restaurants are made inaccessible for people with disabilities.
I reckon it’s pretty healthy to hold a mirror up to any of our own taken-for-granted beliefs, especially when it comes to food. The piece has left me reflecting on my own attitudes towards this genre of food. While it runs in opposition to my firmly-held belief that all food should be valued and that you shouldn’t speak ill of kai, I’m absolutely guilty of sticking my nose up at tinned garlic or feigning self-conscious shame whenever I buy a bag of grated cheese. Never again though.
“The question of why someone might use pre-minced garlic is less important than this one: Does it matter? Cooking should be about the joy of making something you’re excited to eat or serve — about preparing food you like in whatever way works best for you.”
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Weekly bites
As part of the government’s supermarket shake up, it was announced yesterday that a new grocery commissioner will be appointed. It's part of a raft of policies being put in place, prompted by recommendations made by the Commerce Commission. “The grocery commissioner will be a referee of the sector, keeping the supermarket duopoly honest and blowing the whistle where it suspects there is a problem,” Commerce minister David Clark said in a statement. On The Spinoff, Bernard Hickey discusses whether the appointment of a grocery commissioner will have outcomes as positive for consumers as the breaking up of the telco duopoly. The short answer: “don’t count on it”.
Auckland Central’s famous 24-hour Dennys is now only open till 11pm, leaving Denny’s Manukau as the last remaining all-night branch in the country. Sam Brooks, who previously attempted to spend 24 hours at the restaurant reports on why that’s a crying shame and asks the important question: is a Denny’s even a Denny’s if it’s not open, well, always?
This week, I’ve noticed a real uptick in notes plastered on the windows of eateries announcing that they’re closing early, for the day or even for the week, because of low staff numbers. It looks to be a widespread problem with Stuff reporting that restaurants and cafes around the country are cutting hours or even shutting up shop as winter illness exacerbates existing staffing shortages. With Covid-19 numbers creeping back up again and normal winter illnesses re-circulating, matched with next to no restrictions to mitigate those risks within the industry, it hardly comes as a surprise but will be interesting to see if it leads to any significant change in approach within hospitality.
With owner Thomas’s nautical uniform and the looped video of John Campbell crossing live from the shop in 2015 playing continually from a screen out the front, Auckland fish and chip shop Greenwoods Fresh Catch is a suburban treasure. Word on the street (mine at least) is that Thomas and his wife Lilian have decided to call it a day, and retire after 12 years of running their award-winning shop. Bon voyage and happy retirement!
In yesterday’s Bulletin, Anna Rawhiti-Connell takes a dive into the story of how a marine heatwave killed 1,300 tonnes of farmed salmon in Marlborough. With future heat waves highly likely, it’s a stark reminder of the impact climate change may have on our diets.
Speaking of climate change and fish, The Atlantic has an intriguing feature on a study done by marine biologists at the University of British Columbia. Researchers, with the help of local museums and historical societies, gathered menus from hundreds of restaurants around Vancouver dating back to the 1880s to explore how climate change has impacted marine species by way of what seafood restaurants have served over time.
On Monday, after four years of negotiating, New Zealand locked in a free trade agreement with the European Union. The deal is expected to increase the value of New Zealand exports to the EU by $1.8b over the next 13 years. For now, it will mean tariffs will be immediately removed on all kiwifruit, wine, onions, apples, mānuka honey and manufactured goods, along with most seafood. Despite mumblings and grumblings that we’d have to find new names for a bunch of cheeses we make here, it looks like we’ll only have to find new names for feta, sherry and port.
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Five places
Litia Tuibrulevu: director and Auckland University Law research fellow
Stories of gentrification in Auckland’s inner-city suburbs are the focus of a new documentary series by first-time director Litia Tuibrulevu (Fijian, Tongan, Pākehā). The series, called Still Here is essentially a love letter to the central Auckland Pasifika community that settled in suburbs like Grey Lynn and Ponsonby, and those that remain there to this day. It will be available to watch on Re: news through TVNZ from July 10.
I asked Tuibrulevu for her five favourite food spots, which she premised with the following: I'm a truly terrible cook. I'm not being self-deprecating, I'm just very, very bad. Like math and singing, I accepted early on that there are some things not in my divine plan. My fiscal irresponsibility for eating out is boundless. Sometimes I fear for my future offspring's nutritional intake, but hopefully by then we'll have advanced as a species that the microwave from Spy Kids (2001) exists. If we can livestream from the moon, I don't see why this isn't possible.
Fijian goat curry (or whatever my aunties make): I haven't had this since my last visit to Fiji in 2019. I miss the beautiful and mildly chaotic energy involved as I watch my aunties prepare this dish. Truthfully, it's as much about the gossip as it is the food. Writing this has dislodged a core memory when my aunty Esther brought a pot over for my 21st birthday and just ate it with my mum instead of the elaborate spit-roast catering. I didn't get any as I was too anxious about trying to mingle disparate friend groups.
Garlic bread at Big Balls Meatballs: I'm not hyperbolising when I say that their garlic bread was the best load of cheesy carbohydrates I've ever ingested. I fear this small business, so elegantly named Big Balls Meatballs, has now closed so I'm surviving solely through flashbacks.
Egg sandwiches from the Grey Lynn RSC: Much like the Ponsonby Food Court, the RSC is one of the last bastions of diversity in the area. Here, what you read/see is what you get. I'm very fond of their small sandwiches and little treats on a plate. This is my pālagi side jumping out.
Makaurau Marae, Māngere: I had the joy of attending a three-day university-related wānanga at this marae a few years ago and I want to immortalise my compliments to the chef(s) for their exceptional porridge every morning. Absolutely fired from all cylinders. Marae kai is always elite.
Daebak Korean bbq, 99 Albert Street: The closest I've come to enjoying the process of cooking is slapping some meat on a hot-plate and calling it a day. The array of fish, poultry and vegetable options is like a gastronomical “choose your adventure” without the comedown of having to do the dishes.
The weekly snack
Cap Ping Pong Peanut Butter Sandwich Biscuits $2.45 from NJK: There was a hum of pleasant surprise around the bench as my flatmates and I tried these for the first time. It makes perfect sense that peanut butter sandwiched between salted crackers would be moreish, but our unplanned snack tastings have been heavily tainted by previous flops. These strike a balance between salty and sweet that is total joy. They’d make a great mid-morning desk snack with a cup of tea or coffee, especially if your cravings gravitate haphazardly between savoury and sugary as mine do. 8.5/10
Talk next week!
Hei kōnā mai, Charlotte