food & cuisine

a. cultural influences
In my opinion, America has too many cultures present to be specific. It is, after all, called the "Melting Pot". Some major influences though are african cultures, mexican cultures, chinese cultures, european cultures, and what we created ourselves. If you walk into a town for a restaurant, you will most definately see a restaurant in one of these categories.
However in New Zealand, there is a more narrow list of cultural influences. A large part of their food came from Europe, Asia and Polynesia; they just added their own little flare to the cusines to make it their own. New Zealand is a country that is filled with unique and abundant food. They are able to eat fantastic food from their land and sea! Becuase of this,they areable to add their own technique to recipes.
For both countries, food is a large part of dialy life. One tradition that is prevalenti\ in both America and New Zealand, is our barbeques. Though the concept is similar, the act of a barbeque is largely different for both countries. In America, a barbeque is a lrge gathering of freinds and family that eat burgers, hot dogs, and other "american" food. In New Zealand, the whole idea is different; yes they gather as a group to eat, but what and how they cook may seem strange over here. Instead of a barbeque machine, a kiwi man will dig a hole for cooking. In that hole, hot stones a vegetables reside. On top of the veggies, the meet and other veggies are cooked. Even further,the whole contraption is covered and sealed with water! They yhave to let the fool steam for multiple hours before they can eat.
( i accidently did part b too, but  i thought the prep. was different because of a cultural influence: since they were a underdeveloped country for so long, the  Naori people probably haven't felt the needd to adapt to our ways of cooking. It is probably what they have always done, a native cooking technique)

2. I am definately most nervous about all of the animals they eat over there. The idea of eating a lamd or a kangaroo kind of disgusts me, but i hope i will push myself to try even a bite. I AM excited about the barbeque though, the way they create the food sounds really interesting and delicious.