First Catch Your Weka: The Story of New Zealand Cooking

"First catch your Weka”, Charles Heaphy advised in 1842, then stuff it with sage and onion and roast it on a stick. In that simple way began a great tradition of New Zealand cooking. In this book, David Veart tells the story of what New Zealanders cooked. Analysing the crusty deposits and grubby thumb prints on a century and a half of cook books, Veart chronicles the extraordinary foods that New Zealanders have loved.

Contents include: Cookbooks Brought from Home -- Chapter 2. Food of the First Necessity, Our Daily Bread -- Chapter 3. The Cookbooks of Empire, The Later 19th Century -- Chapter 4. Bottling -- Chapter 5. Cooking for Ourselves, 1900-1920 -- Chapter 6. Sweet Teeth -- Chapter 7. The Electrified Cult of Domesticity, The 1920s -- Chapter 8. Handy Hints for the Household Manager -- Chapter 9. Hard Times Meet Hollywood and Health food, The 1930s -- Chapter 10. The Cookbook goes to War, 1939-45 -- Chapter 11. Dining with the Women's Institute -- Chapter 12. Beaming Housewives and the Meals Men Prefer, The 1940s and 1950s -- Chapter 13. History in the Baking: Commemorative Cookery -- Chapter 14. Flash and Foreign and The Arrival of the TV Cook, The 1960s -- Chapter 15. Festival Food -- Chapter 16. Test Kitchens and Gin Soaked Salads, The 1970s.