Kiwi School Lunch in the 1950’s

Hokowhitu Primary School

Once in a while I hunger for a ‘ fresh from the bakery ’ meat pie and doughnut like the ones I used to have for lunch at school back in New Zealand.

There was no school cafeteria at Hokowhitu School back in the 50’s, but right outside the school grounds there was a dairy. A dairy was a small neighborhood store which sold staples, such as eggs, butter, milk, snacks, newspapers etc. There are very few dairys in existance now, as supermarkets have replaced most of them.

Once a week, I was allowed to buy my lunch instead of taking a bagged lunch from home, so I stopped off at the dairy before school and put in an order for my lunch, a meat pie and a doughnut.

Around the noon hour when the lunch bell would ring, those of us who had ordered our lunch would (scramble, push and shove) politely line up and walk in an orderly fashion, ( well some of us were orderly) to the dairy to pick up our bagged lunches.

My mouth still waters, remembering the first bite of the warm flaky pastry crust of a mince pie, the taste of the filling, drool, slobber !

A selection of various meat pies

The New Zealand pie is a single-serve meat and gravy filled pastry of varying ratios and proportions, traditionally served with liberal amounts of tomato sauce. The tomato sauce is similar to tomato ketchup but doesn't contain any of the spices.

Make an oval with the thumb and forefingers of both hands - this is the approximate size and shape of a Kiwi pie, and they are about an inch and a half in thickness.

Common meat fillings are mince, (hamburger) or steak. Less common fillings are steak and kidney, ( horrible) steak and mushroom ( nasty ) and bacon and egg, ( OK ) One of my favorite pies was mince with a mashed potato top.

These pies are consumed by people from all walks of life for lunch, or as half-time fare during a rugby match. Rugby, as the bumper sticker goes, is a game played by men with odd-shaped balls.

To cater to the overwhelming demand for this foodstuff, mobile vendors called piecarts, came into existence and to cash in on the overwhelming demand for Kiwi pies. Entrepreneurs in the late 1980s tried to create a franchise, called Georgie Pie, in the style of McDonalds or Taco Bell - but with pies.
The enterprise folded in the mid 1990s.

The best tasting doughnuts in the world

Once I had eaten the pie, the doughnut was next. Not once since living in USA have I had a doughnut which tasted quite like the 50’s doughnuts.

I am fairly certain they were deep fried in lard, sounds gross, but lard was used to deep fry most foods back then, the doughnuts were then rolled in powdered sugar, split and filled with real whipped cream and a little jam, Yummmm!!

I suppose if I had the chance of tasting the same pies and doughnuts now, I would not care for them.

Funny how our tastes change over the years, what we would not eat as kids, we often like now.