Cooking with Kiwi

Slow-cooking is all the rage these days. I'm using my gran's crockpot (that's what they were called before they got cool) and was looking through a suitably aged recipe book, The New Zealand Crockpot Cookbook by Joan Bishop (first published1985). The most striking thing about the recipes were the number of times fruit and meat met in the one dish.

* Chicken and Apricot Pate (a classic combo but rather old fashioned these days)

* Fruited Pot Roast of Veal (includes dried apricots, pitted prunes and raisins)

* Chicken with Pineapple (Pineapple might just be the most eighties fruit. Remember those cheese and pineapple hedgehogs? And, of course, the Hawaiian Pizza)

* Lamb with Tamarillos

And the pièce de résistance:

* Pork and Kiwifruit Casserole (p.57 if your interested)

Then on Sunrise this morning, they showed this ad from the eighties as part of the obituary for legendary TV slush, I mean chef, Keith Floyd:

Those prawns don't look like they want a bar of those Kiwifruit slices. And chicken stuffed with Kiwi? (No, that's not a form of Turducken involving our national emblem).

It's official. The white man had no idea about food in the eighties. Though that meringue looked good.

I think I've officially outed myself as a foodie. On Saturday, M and I are off to Martinborough for French cooking lessons at a winery. (I pretend it's all for her birthday.)

Time for a glass of red, a toast to Keith Floyd, and an entirely fruitless main course!