BEVS

Ah ! I can quite see that. Thing is , that maybe is to do with how they are grown & at what stage they are picked.

The same as for the UK applies to here also. It is all about how they get those toms from the vine to the shop display.

My toms are very tasty as I make sure my soil is tomato heaven. I pick and eat within a couple of hours.

I would agree though. You can't get a tasty tom in the shops no matter when you buy as most all are from greenhouses and picked green to last . Not sun ripened. It is just a very few producers that grow seasonally.

So it still beggers the question. Why do we pay through the roof for a mediocre tomato in winter when toms are grown year round here.

TommyLuck

In the case of the Tomato, which I now wish I didn't use as an example, I don't know specifically.

All I'm saying is that if you don't value something at it's cost, don't buy it. How important is a Tomato in ones life when there is really an abundance of other opportunities to explore at a cost which would be seen as good value.

The Weezer

I was pointing out that NZ is not a great place if one of your enjoyments in life is cooking and eating a great variety of foods. You are limited, and when you do find something a bit different it will be expensive. It's not just about complaining you can't find things from back home.

Tommy, you pointed out you like to buy "quality" food. Is organic, free range, completely fresh in season food the same price in NZ as it is in Britain? When I've bought NZ grown garlic (not organic) instead of the imported Chinese stuff that is ubiquitous in the supermarkets AND the produce shops, it costs about 4 bucks for a 250 gm pack. I only did it once because that's just a crazy price. Free range eggs and chickens are very expensive too, and I'm not convinced they are really free range.

I've heard many times people on the forum say that now that they are in NZ they only eat things in season. Couldn't you do that in Britain too? Is that what the locals here in NZ do? I don't know, it's actually a bit hard to do the grocery shopping if you're only buying local, whether it's in the supermarket or in produce shops. So much imported stuff, so hard to find organic, and sometimes quite expensive if you stick to the local Kiwi stuff. As Bevs pointed out, tomatoes are grown year round, and are expensive. I haven't found them to have that vine ripened flavor particularly.

The Weezer

I can cook Spanish food here, but several Spanish ingredients really are quite expensive, like chorizo, imported Spanish paprika and saffron. Mexican food is particularly challenging as hardly any Mexican ingredients are even available, or or hard to find and expensive. I presume you don't mean Old El Paso?

I actually can't make San Marzano tomatoes, as they're just a variety of Italian grown plum tomatoes, usually imported in a tin. They're the absolute best for making tomato sauces. I've looked for seeds here, but didn't find any a few years ago when I looked. Maybe they're available these days?

In what way is the produce fresher here than it was in the UK? You can't get fresh produce in Britain?

Mark Smith

Sorry to butt in, Chiquilin paprika is easily available around Chch for $6 a tin, comes in hot, sweet and smoked - goes great in my paella. Even found it online for $4 Chiquilin Hot Paprika 75g | Mighty Mart NZ

The Weezer

Thanks Mark Smith, good to know. I feel like running out and making a paella right now. Too bad I've already packed away my paella pan. I can find some imported things here in Auckland at Farros and Nosh, but I tend to walk out I'm so put off by the prices.

You certainly wouldn't be splurging on imported paprika too often if you're a family trying to make do on $94k in Auckland with a mortgage, though.

I think on that amount you'd have to content yourself on a more typically Kiwi diet of canned spaghetti, canned beans, packet sauces and flavorings, Kiwi brand or Tip Top Ice Cream (yuck!), sausages made from God knows what mixed with hydrolized protein, lots of beef mince, etc. If you're having a gathering then you can splurge on frozen sausage rolls and frozen savouries. On the weekends you might be able to find a "pre-cooked" sausage on white bread slice with no brand tomato sauce at a sausage sizzle, if you're lucky. This is what I have personally observed that people seem to eat on a frequent basis, and what I know of Kiwi family and friends.

(Yes, I know people do eat fruits and veg. as well, but it's still pretty much true).

Pom_Chch

We eat Mexican all the time here. Fajitas are a weekly occurrence in my house Freshly made salsa and guacamole from scratch, tortillas and sour cream from supermarket, chicken from butcher, lemon/lime from the bush in the garden. Burritos made in a similar way but with home made tomato sauce. Tacos made the same but with our own shells. No different to the UK really. How would that be any different in NZ? You must be able to get all of the above ingredients where you are? Non of it really needs anything special.

Why would you need Spanish imported paprika and saffron? I'm pretty sure you could source that kind of stuff from NZ at half the cost, if not more. I've personally never had a problem with the selection available.

I eat more fresh fruit and veges here because I find the quality far better. I find that I actually want the stuff on my plate, whereas in the UK veggies were more of a chore. One of our local green grocers grows the produce in the field behind where he serves his customers. Literally straight out of the ground and into your basket. All for a very good price. I never thought much of the stuff in Tesco, Asda etc and I found local green grocers to be more expensive and not much better.

Perhaps it's different all over NZ depending on where you are...

Pom_Chch

With respect, I couldn't disagree more. We love to cook and most of our meals are from scratch. Tasty healthy and wholesome meals with plenty of variety. My meal plan for this week - Thai green curry tonight, fajitas tomorrow, chicken pie on Weds, Vietnamese noodle soup on Thurs and Friday lamb chops (or probably fish 'n chips if I'm feeling lazy!) Nothin' wrong with that menu IMVHO! Nothing here that's breaking the bank also.

Mark Smith

sadly because the greggs/masterfood stuff tastes like dyed carpet dust and would be a culinary crime.
Anyway sorry to detract from the original OP.

BEVS

I know it shouldn't , but it all really rather tickles me.

It's the idea of the entire UK being an entire barren wasteland devoid of any quality organic fruit , vege or meat . Whereas NZ is brimming to overflow like a veritable Eden garden.

Of course, neither of the above is the case.

In the UK we sourced fresh organic & spray free fruit, vege and meat easily & at a good price . Heck. Some would even deliver a weekly basket for you. Here in NZ so far, in ten years, that has not been possible. Of course, I can only speak as I have found over the past decade.

I'd go with Bearskin on this one. A local hobby farmers market is probably the way to go if you don't grow your own and don't have your own hens* . These very small producers will probably have picked their produce close to the day.
They won't sell much by way of meat or poutry but it's a start and you can pick up info on who does sell quality home grown organic, chemical and spray free food.

*sshhhh but eggs are really quite seasonal too. My hens testify to this one.


Further thought. On $95K in Auckland, the OP may well be finding the shopping basket curtailed.

The Weezer

Hi Pom Chch, I thought you were referring to Mexican food as eaten in Mexico. You can make some TexMex foods readily enough here, at least most of them, if you buy prepared taco shells. Masa harina, which is what you use to make corn tortillas is quite expensive when you can find it. Pak n Save used to sell it (still does?) and the fancy groceries do as well. I'm not saying you can't make some things, just pointing out that it's not necessarily inexpensive. Can't find fresh tomatillos, though, to make green salsa.

You don't absolutely need imported paprika, it just tastes better. The stuff in the supermarkets isnt' very good. I was mostly making the point that ingredients like saffron are expensive, as they would be anywhere probably. I thought it was relevant in a thread about cost of living.


Again, how is the quality better? I see you buy from someone who grows their own food, but you would only be able to get some things, in season? Surely this place doesn't meet all your produce need? Do they grow an enormous variety of fruits and vegetables? And wouldn't that be true too if you lived in a more rural part of Britain? If you have to buy any of your produce in a supermarket or veg. shop, is it really better quality? In what way?

bearskin

I've bought seeds before in NZ. I'll have a look when I'm home and see where I got them from - it was online somewhere and I bought about 20 different types of seeds inc. some quite unusual ones.

BTW I also found a plant for the chilli pepper that you dry to use in Mexican food - again, I will look it up when i get home - and I have heaps of the seed myself that I have saved if anyone is interested.

BEVS

I can solve this .

Buy from Country Trading Store. -- Heritage tom seeds. I can actually vouch for Heather as being totally into the organic and heritage produce. She is a lovely person too. I don't need to tout for her, as this is a lively successful business.

She used to have a shop down on our Mapua Wharf but closed it because the rates became ridiculous ( Thanks TDC for pricing out a great & incredibly popular outlet )

Nowadays you can only buy online. She has a FB page which contains lots of little bits of interesting recipes, hints, tips and generally good old produce info.

TommyLuck

Hand on heart, our household weekly menu has broadened since being in New Zealand. Different things to cook with, one of the more recent finds the KamoKamo.

My version of quality if buying meat free of hormones, grass (not grain) fed beef, eggs free range and fresh vegetables free of as much pesticide as I can be sure of. Most of all, we largely buy on nutritional value, so lack of additives, refined sugars and the like are few and far between.

You could buy seasonally in the UK, but the premium on out of season produce in the UK is so marginal we often don't even realise something is in season until the price dramatically falls - Strawberries are the best example I can think of in the UK, only really in season for maybe 2 months a year and yet you can buy them all year - although the in season Strawberry is so superior in terms of flavour to the out of season one it's not funny.


But overall, I can only compare to my pre-NZ life in the UK.

After reading and being involved in a number of threads about the cost of living in New Zealand, I was worried about the shopping bill before arriving. My fears were unfounded, the truth being that we spend about the same in NZ as we did in the UK.

I will say that I shop smarter in NZ, perhaps because of the warning I heeded about the cost of living on here.


This all leads me back to Davros observation about those form the SE of the UK comparing the cost of living in NZ, having a different view to those from outside the SE of the UK - his observation being that those from, or that have most recent lived in that area of the UK tend to find NZ more palatable in terms of cost.

This may well go beyond $$$'s alone, for instance my commute in London was 1 hour each way, as was my OH, nor did we have a car and I could hardly pick much up on the way home as I cycled, my OH did the pick up from childcare.

In comparison in NZ my commute is 5 mins, the OH is 20 mins and we have a car here.

Therefore we've already got about 10 hours a week back in our lives, some of which is spent shopping around for food, rather than buying it in one place because is saves time.

So perhaps this time and the change of my habits of food shopping contributes, but isn't this the whole point of moving to a new land? To change you life and therefore your daily routine. I know that my daily routine is vastly different in NZ than it was in the UK.

It's also a routine that would have been very difficult, if not impossible to achieve in the UK.


Anyway, I reiterate, my family monthly food shopping bill is about the same as it was in the UK.

We obviously stick different things in our respective trolleys.

The Weezer

Are organic vegetables the same price in NZ as they are in Britain? Is it as easy to find organic produce and grains here?

Where are you finding meat that is wholly grass fed? I don't mean you can't. I was just wondering where/what brand. Also, is it hugely expensive? Lots of beef raised here is fed palm kernels that are a by product of palm oil production. In fact, NZ is the second largest consumer of said palm kernels in the world. They are also fed genetically modified soy and cotton seed meal. In Britain, Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer's stipulate that any milk or meat they sell must come from animals that have not been fed genetically modified feed or ingredients. I'm not aware of such standards being imposed in any supermarket, butcher or grocer in NZ. Years ago, there was talk of a study being done by Otago? Univeristy, where they would investigate the possible health effects on humans consumming beef and dairy fed large amounts of palm kernel by product. There was some concern about the effect on the fats in meat and milk. I've never been able to find out what's been written. haven't looked lately, but I did look it up last year but couldn't find anything. Maybe Fonterra and the like put a stop to it?

Anyway, while I was in Australia I was able to enjoy proper milk, that has not had protein permeate added to it. In Australia several manufacturers decided to cease adding it to the milk, and they add a label letting you know. NZ milk always tasted weird to me, and I now know why. They add disgusting snotty sludge to it to "increase the protein level" Whatever it is, I don't like it.