Local community organisations, clubs, courses and programmes
Festive food
Whatever you’re planning for Christmas dinner, our libraries have plenty of resources to help you prepare festive food.
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Traditional Christmas fare
When Thomas Edmonds published the Edmond’s Cookbook in 1907 he created the most successful New Zealand cookbook ever. So it’s a great place to go for recipes for the most traditional of Christmas fare. An online version of the 1914 cookbook is available at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre. It contains a simple recipe for Christmas cake — including brandy — and a Christmas plum pudding.
The informative note to young people assures readers that “careful practice will bring you success”
Celebrity chefs at Christmas
- Alison Holst’s cooking for Christmas : Christmas baking & edible gifts
- Best-ever Christmas cookbook Annabelle White
- Jamie’s Christmas (DVD) Jamie Oliver
- Delia’s happy Christmas Delia Smith
- Nigella Christmas: food, family, friends, festivities Nigella Lawson
- Christmas: simple recipes, menu planners Donna Hay
- Elizabeth David’s Christmas
Pavlova
The pavlova is a Kiwi food icon, whose origins are hotly debated between Australia and New Zealand. The idea of a large cake-sized meringue topped with fruit and cream appears in a 1926 cookbook — Futter’s Home Cookery for New Zealand — but it is simply called Meringue Cake. The famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova visited New Zealand in the same year.
For more fun and inspiration, try our Internet Gateway Food, wine and cooking section.
