Kiwi food favorites: A Delicious history of the pavlova
Published on Fri Nov 19 2021 in Community
New Zealand and Australia have long shared a good-natured rivalry: We fight it out on the rugby pitch for the Bledisloe. We like to remind Australia who was first to give women the vote. We even go back and forth about who gets to claim Russell Crowe and Crowded House.
But our most heated debate may be deciding who really invented the pavlova!
The classic pav has been a Kiwi favourite for nearly a century. It’s a simple dish that we keep coming back to, with the taste of cream and berries bringing back fond memories of warm New Zealand summers and Christmases past. Strange to think that the pavlova might not be a Kiwi invention—or an Aussie one, either!
Anna Pavlova, ballerina
You may already know that the pavlova dessert was named after famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Trained in classical ballet from a young age, Pavlova was chosen for the Imperial Ballet at the age of 18. She worked with some of Russia’s most talented choreographers before forming her own company.
In 1926, Pavlova toured New Zealand and Australia. Audiences were thrilled by her performances, as well as her interviews. She even shared some fitness advice with The Evening Post: “You must walk to health. Walking is the very best exercise for the whole of the body.”
It was this tour that’s said to have inspired the dessert named after Pavlova. The meringue and cream concoction was inspired by the ballerina’s lighter-than-air tutus she wore while dancing. Pavlova herself is said to have had a very sweet and kind personality, so the dessert sounds like a fitting tribute!
Food fight: NZ vs. Oz
Kiwis and Aussies agree on who the pavlova was created for, but we disagree on who invented the dish.
New Zealanders maintain that the pavlova was created by a hotel chef in Wellington during Pavlova’s 1926 tour. Australians point to a pav recipe published that same year by the Davis Gelatine company in Sydney. However, that dish was a multi-layered jelly, nothing like the meringue, cream and fruit dessert we know today.
In 2010 it seemed like the matter was solved. The Oxford English Dictionary stated that the first recorded pavlova recipe appeared in New Zealand in 1927. Other historians backed them up, citing multiple pavlova recipes that appeared in Kiwi cookbooks before 1940—the first year that one was found in an Aussie cookbook. Case closed!
An international import?
Not so fast! Further investigation has discovered that the pavlova as we know it—meringue topped with cream and berries or other fruit—may have got its start north of the Equator.
Turns out, “pavlovas” were popular in Europe long before they reached our shores. The German “foam cake” and the French “kiss cake” could be found in American cookbooks as far back as the mid-1800s. Both are meringue tortes topped with cream and fruit. Basically, pavlovas by another name.
These recipes were brought to America by European immigrants, and later to New Zealand and Australia. Americans may even have been the ones to introduce the recipe to us. A pavlova-type recipe was found on a container of corn starch imported from America in the 1890.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter who invented the pavlova. It’s been embraced by both Kiwis and Aussies as a summer dessert favourite. The pav is a little taste of New Zealand that we should all be proud to share with the world!
Curious about other Kiwi food favourites? Read all about how fish & chips became our number one takeaway meal!
About Author: Momentum Life is a leading provider of Life insurance and Funeral insurance in New Zealand.
Sources:
Stuff, Flashback: New Zealand swoons as Pavlova the ballerina tours the country
BBC, Pavlova created in New Zealand not Australia, OED rules
ABC, Pavlova is an iconic summer dessert with a contested history
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