New Zealand Cuisine

New Zealand is located to the right of Australia. The two countries are quite similar but are unique in their own special ways. They are quite similar because of the closeness of the two countries and as well, the people that took over the countries a long time ago. New Zealand's cuisine is similar to Australian's as they have the same influences but are again, different in their own way.

New Zealand's cuisine draws inspiration from Asia, Europe and the Pacific islands of Polynesia. These such influences have created a unique range of flavours and food styles. It's cuisine is based on local ingredients that are harvested from the surrounding ocean, rivers and agricultural landscapes. The enjoy quality local produce.

New Zealand's breakfast is quite the same as many English-speaking countries. In Summer, they usually have juice, toast, fruit. In the winter, they have porridge or weet-a-bix with hot milk, quite similar to the english-speaking countries.

High end Restaurants and fast food restaurants provide an increasing part of their diet - it is much the same in lots of countries in this day and age. Most New Zealand cooks are dependent to some extent on pre-made ingredients. They eat take-away about once a week. Barbeque's are common in the summer as a social event. Guests bring their help by bringing meat and wine and music is played.

Cafe's are more commonly seen in New Zealand now as well, in the 1900's tearooms were very popular providing tea, coffee, cream scones, muffins but in time the tearoom owners converted their businesses into cafe's and modified it, keeping up with the influences of Australia and adopting the Mediterranean ways of drinking espresso's and such drinks.

Some dishes that represent New Zealand are a lolly cake, double chocolate cheescake muffins, creamy tomato cauliflower pasta and much much more, as New Zealand is influenced from nearly everywhere around world they have a wide variety of dishes. Fish and Chips are commonly eaten.

Pavlova is New Zealand's national dessert.

Irish Cuisine

Ireland is an island in northwestern Europe. Their cuisine is a style of cooking developed by the Irish people. It has evolved from centuries of political and social change. The Irish cuisine takes influence because of its temperate climate and the crops grown and animals farmed.

Then in the 16th century the potato was introduced. With the introduction of the potato it changed the cuisine enormously after that. Unfortunately in 1945, 'The Great Famine' occurred and a terrible disease struck the majority of the potatoes growing in Ireland. The potatoes were rotten and black inside and the leaves withered. At that point there was barely any food in Ireland as potatoes were the staple food of Ireland and the population decreased from eight million to a little over four million. This shows how important food is in the lives of the human being. Luckily enough the potatoes then grew fine a couple of years later.

In most households of the Irish, dinner consists of a meat, potatoes and vegetables. So even today the potato is still a strong food that is eaten a lot in the cuisine of the Irish. Some Irish foods that include potatoes are colcannon, boxty and hash browns.

The beef of the cattle in Ireland is renowned for its great quality and is exported widely throughout the world. Thanks to our healthy, well farmed and looked after cattle!

Some traditional dishes of Irish cuisine are bacon and cabbage, coddle, Irish stew. Soda bread is also eaten, usually with a pint of stout, - Guinness, most likely. Ireland is also famous for the traditional Irish Breakfast. Fish is very popular in Ireland also e.g Dublin Bay Prawns.

Honey was widely eaten and used in cooking. Black pudding, made from the blood of cattle is still a staple breakfast food in Ireland.

Now in the 21st century, the modern western culture has been adapted in the Irish culture. Fast Food has led to increasing health problems in Ireland today.

'Geography - Food Project'

Our Geography project was giving to us as an 'End of Year Project' to be completed for the 16th of May. We were asked to think of something we are interested in and base our project on it. I chose to do countries cuisine as I'm a lover of food. We were then asked to make a map on Google Maps and are to 'visit' five countries regarding the topic we have chosen and write about those countries.

I didn't want to choose any old country so I tried to go deeper into the choosing of them, having a meaning behind my choice.

The five countries I chose to write about are: Irish Cuisine, Rwandan Cuisine, New Zealand Cuisine, Hungarian Cuisine and finally Greek Cuisine.

The reasons behind these choices are as follows.

I chose to do Irish food is because I am from Ireland and wanted to learn more about my countries cuisine. - Irish Cuisine

I then went on to choose Rwandan cuisine as I have been recently doing the Rwandan Genocide in Religion and was I was intrigued by the countries history and wanted to learn about their cuisine. - Rwandan Cuisine

I was going to do Australia as it's one of the five continents but then I decided to do New Zealand. Although the two countries are similar, they do have their differences and I was drawn more to New Zealand. - New Zealand Cuisine

I went and chose Hungary as I visited the country last winter and found their cuisine to be peculiar but tasty at the same time, so I wanted to learn more. - Hungarian Cuisine

Lastly, I chose Greek cuisine as it's a beautiful country and one of the many countries I'd like to visit because of its beauty. - Greek Cuisine

I enjoyed doing this project thoroughly as I got to learn about different countries cuisine and I also expanded on my knowledge of working with Google Maps which is something I may need in the future.

Ballet

Yesterday morning, all ty's set off to go to Belvedere College to see a fellow Ty Hayley Cunningham perform in the Ballet Show. I didnt know what to expect at the beginning but once the show started and the story unfolded I really enjoyed it all. The first dance was based on The Ugly Duckling, then South Pacific which is were we saw Hayley first after that was an interval and then The Snow Queen, the Snow Queen herself was amazing, she is a third year in the our school, she danced great. Congradulations to the both of them, they were exceptional and to the rest of the girls and boys who participated, it was a truly great day. Belvedere College is very posh and big, it was crazy comparing it to our school!

English ...

So in English we were giving a task. A task to read a novel from the list thats on the Prescribed texts for 2013. I decided to read The Kiterunner, although this novel is not on the list, current %th years are reading it and my teacher said it was okay to read. So I've started it and I'm chapter three, so far so good. It seems like an interesting read and if I keep reading it throughout Easter and the weeks I should have it all done. It's based around Afghanistan and Muslim people. It seems like a good read and I sure it will be very good once I get well into it.

Jabba Jabba Jembe

On 31st March, Dave came in and we had a Jembe workshop. At the beginning, I wasnt that enthusiastic but then as we got into it, i began to really enjoy it! We were there for a good few hours and I thought it would be too long, but the time went by really quick. We got to find somethings about the origin of Mali and where the Jembe originated from. We then looked at a piece on music called Foli, it was so interesting, I really enjoyed it! We learned how to play the Jembe correctly and learned some pieces to play on it, along side with a piece of a song, which was very fun. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the Jembe Workshop and he has a really cute dog.

Music Night

So the music night was on 30th of March. All TY's sung a song by Dionne Bromfield called Mama Said. She is Amy Winehouse's niece! The night went really well, I got a lift with Roisin and we got there at about 8:15, we went into the science corridors and sat down and talked to our chums. We then lined up and got on stage, before going on stage we were told to be quiet several times but then we got on stage and sung our hearts out. It went realllly well! we were on stage for like 3mins then it was over. All TY's went into the demo room and watched School Oof Rock until Roisin's dad collected us and we went home. Overall it was a good night.