Tag Archives: food

Down the sink it goes

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So somehow I ended up on this Coca-Cola New Zealand mailing list and a couple of days ago they informed the masses that “One of New Zealand’s favourite beverages of the 80′s [sic] is back by popular demand to quench your thirst this summer.”

It turns out this “favourite beverage” is Mello Yello, which was such a favourite that they stopped making it in the late ’80s.

The only thing I remember about Mello Yello was the TV ad, which featured a lady with giant frosted blonde hair (like Princess Diana, but sluttier) at the beach, who sculled back not one but two bottles of Mello Yello, with each drink preceded by a rhyme. Then the voices sang, “Mello Yello makes you feel so good so fast from your head down to your toe. Mello Yello makes you feel so good so fast. You just can’t drink it slow.” This was, like most ads, a dirty lie. It was also not a cool ad, because I remember it being mocked in the playground at my school.

I don’t remember drinking much Mello Yello in the ’80s. Soft drinks were a special occasion drink, and when I had a choice, I would have probably gone for Fanta or the more grown-up, sophisticated choice, Coke.

But not only is Mello Yello being brought back (for a limited time only), it’s also being promoted with an ’80s nostalgia angle. There’s even a MySpace page for it where Mello Yello’s favourite TV shows include The A Team, Knightrider, The Dukes of Hazzard, and CHiPs.

This morning I noticed Mello Yello in the fridge at my local dairy so I bought a bottle. It seemed to only be available in a 600ml bottle, which is ridiculously large and even more than the two bottles the ad lady sunk back in rapid succession.

I drank a bit and it was not a the magic liquid nostalgia experience I seemed to have been promised. It just was this cloyingly sweet, murky yellow fizzy beverage. It didn’t even have a pleasing citrus tang.

But maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe the only way to properly enjoy Mello Yello is to rapidly drink it, to slurp back 302 kilocalories in mere seconds and get so high that all your worries disappear and then enter a parallel universe where it’s like the ’80s but without bad coffee, sexism, shops closed on Sundays or that prime-time TV show about dogs herding sheep.

So I won’t be buying any more Mello Yello. It can happily retire to the land of unwanted ’80s nostalgia. And besides, Mello Yello didn’t even accept my MySpace friend request, so, really, it can just piss off.

Dairy food

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I was thinking about dairy food today when it occurred to me that New Zealand might be the only place in the world to have dairy food.

I’ve been googling and indeed the only websites I can find that have “dairy food” associated with that stuff in the supermarket fridge near the yoghurt (not describing cheese and milk products) are to do with New Zealand. Calci-yum, Meadow Fresh and Vigueur appear to be it. They don’t even seem to have dairy food in Australia.

I’ve tried to find out what it’s called in other countries, or indeed if it exists in other countries. From what I’ve been able to figure out, the yoghurt-like thing for children tends to be either fromage frais or sweet yoghurt. Stuff that resembles dairy food is more likely to be called a custard or pudding, and sold as a dessert treat for adults.

So where did this mysterious dairy food stuff come from? Well, it just so happens I can remember my third-form home-economics teacher telling us about dairy food. She reckoned that it came about because once upon a time in New Zealand’s dark past, there was some goopy sweet stuff that was sold as yoghurt, but some concerned citizen took a look at it and said, “Hey, now! This is not yoghurt!” The relevant people investigated and indeed it was discovered that it was not yoghurt and was in fact goopy sweet stuff. A new law declared that yoghurt had to be that goopy less-sweet, slightly sour stuff made from a culture, while the goopy sweet stuff was renamed dairy food. Or so my third-form home-economics teacher said.

Interestingly enough, Calci-Yum has a flavour trio called “Kiwi”, which is milk chocolate, hokey pokey, and milkshake (as in those Milkshake lollies!). But if, as indeed appears to be the case, dairy food is unique to New Zealand, then surely any flavour of dairy food is a Kiwi flavour?

Póg mo thóin 2: Fiddle-dee-dee potatoes

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The caff at work were serving various St Patrick’s Day themed food. This seemed to follow the American style of celebrating St Patrick’s Day by dying everything green. I didn’t mean to but I consumed the following:

- A green lamington (!)
- A spinach salad.
- A ham, cheese and salad in a green tortilla thing.
- A piece of mint-chocolate cake with green icing.

I was feeling kind of bad about celebrating my Irish heritage by eating crap, so I decided to cook some traditional Irish food – the sort of thing my ancestors left Ireland so they could stop eating.

I made champ, a potato dish. It goes like this – get a couple of potatoes, peel them, boil them whole until they’re cooked through. In another pot, biff in a bit of whole milk (not trim or reduced fat – get the stuff with the glob of cream floating on top), chop up some spring onions (or other flavoursome greens) and cook them in the milk. Drain the potatoes, mash ‘em, mix in the spring onions, and as much milk as you need to make a nice mixture, add season with salt and pepper. Make a little hole in the top and add a blob of butter and serve with a glass o’ milk.

Yum.

Then I had a glass of Guinness. I got the last four-pack in the chiller at Foodtang today, narrowly beating two guys who seemed really upset that that they couldn’t find any.

I’m into this ethnic heritage celebration thing. I could celebrate my Scottish heritage in Dunedin on Robbie Burns’ birthday and celebrate my English heritage by having a tikka masala.

Peace for Ireland.

- Roibín Ó Gallchobhair

The Food Show 2004

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Oh, no. It’s the 2004 Food Show. Unlike last year, where I showed great restraint, this year I had but one goal: To get my money’s worth for the $15 entry fee. Oh dear. I did all the things I’d vowed not to do.

  • I picked up toothpicks and speared them in cheese cubes.
  • I sampled bits of meat that all tasted identical.
  • I took microscopic slivers of chocolate.
  • I dipped bits of bread into olive oil, and – in a new twist – dipped those oiled bits of bread into bowls of herbs and spices.
  • I tried samples of ice cream.
  • I felt horribly ill and had to sit down.

I realised that there is a good reason why people usually eat while they’re sitting down – because it’s physically uncomfortable to eat a lot in a vertical position. I found took a seat in the back of the cooking demonstration area and attempted to digest the previous hour’s samples, but just managed to felt like a gluttonous fat-arse, not unlike Governor Phatt from Monkey Island 2.

The cheese and ice cream demo guy was halfway through mixing up some cheesy stuff when I realised that a) I am sooo over cheese and b) I wasn’t feeling ill anymore, so I got up off my not-so-fat-anymore arse and got back to the food show. I can report the following:

  • I feel sorry for people with a gluten intolerance. The gluten-free breads I tried were either dry and crumbly or damp and spongy. I don’t feel sorry for people who just go gluten-free as a last-ditch weight loss attempt.
  • At the Vanilla Direct stand, I overhead one of the Vanilla guys saying that they were planning on changing the company name to The Natural Vanilla Company because, apparently, company names that are “[Product Name] Direct” are old and gimmicky. Whereas “The [Product Name] Company” isn’t?
  • I remember at the Food Show about four years ago when all the organic food was a bit freaky and hippyish. Now it’s getting very very ordinary and mainstream.
  • I scored a chart showing when fruit and vegetables are in season because, y’know, it’s more ethically sound to buy things in season and minimise environmental damage caused by international shipping.
  • It’s interesting to see how Cadbury were discretely pimping their Mother Earth and (ahem) Natural Confectionary Company brands. “It’s so good that someone is making food without all that muck in it,” said one overexcited show visitor.
  • Cyclops have this new liquorice-flavoured yoghurt that is unexpectedly delicious.
  • I bought an oven cloth. I’ve never actually been able to get my oven to work, but, um, it was only $1.
  • I also got some Nick’s Pasta fettucine for $1. I believe Nick himself sold it to me.
  • I was in the midst of pilfering two sample boxes of Special K when the Kellogg’s lady said, “Would you like a sample of Special K?” “Yes, thanks,” I politely replied in the midst of stuffing the boxes in my bag and walking away.