Things New Zealand doesn't have (Part 2)

New Zealand does not have Quorn. Shops aren't allowed to import it because MAF objects to its origins.

Quorn is a meat substitute, made from some sort of mushroom product. My husband is a vegetarian and I don't like many vegetables, so we struggle to eat healthy meals together and usually end up making two versions of something, or eating totally different things. Quorn enabled us to eat things like lasagne, spag bol, chicken stir fry, beef and black bean sauce - I could barely tell that it wasn't real meat, and of course Skry was happy because no animals had to die for his dinner.

Since we moved to Christchurch we have pretty much given up cooking together, and although our crappy kitchen is one factor, the lack of Quorn is another. I don't want to experiment to find out what vegetables I can eat - I'll do that in my own time. And of course I could not ask Skry to start eating meat again. Tofu is just about bearable, but nowhere near as meat-like or versatile.

Come on MAF, let us have our Quorn! Do you really, honestly think that it's a danger to the native ecology just because it started life as a mushroom?

Things New Zealand doesn't have (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a new series on my blog, Things New Zealand Doesn't Have. This is not a criticism, just an observation!

New Zealand does not have hamsters. They aren't a native species here, and MAF is very careful about preventing plants and animals being imported if they might mess with the plants and animals that are already here.
At least one person has been sent to court for smuggling a hamster into the country (probably more, but I did not carry out an exhaustive search).

MAF says this about importing pets from abroad:
"Importation is currently limited to dogs and cats from certain countries, rabbits from Australia and chinchillas from the United Kingdom."

Who would have imagined that British chinchillas enjoy special status where other chinchillas don't? Bizarre. And I am very sad that I can never have a pet hamster for as long as we live here. They are such cute little things and very interesting pets (although annoying when they make a racket late at night, or chew something they shouldn't), but we will have to content ourselves with just the chickens.

(As an aside, one day about a year ago when Skry was walking home from work, he helped a very drunk woman carry her chinchilla back to her house. It was covered in pink chalk dust. I am not making this up.)

Cicadas

Somebody* just asked me if we have cicadas in Christchurch. The short answer is: yes, we do.

Living in Ireland, my exposure to cicadas was limited to books and films. The grim, cold, rainy Irish climate just isn't attractive enough for them (they prefer an average temperature of 29c). But as soon as I visited a hot country, the noise was obvious. They congregate in trees and make enough noise to be audible even through the closed windows of a car while driving past at 100kph.

Wikipedia says that 'they have loud noisemakers called "timbals" on the sides of the abdominal base. Their "singing" is not the stridulation (where two structures are rubbed against one another) of many other familiar sound-producing insects like crickets: the timbals are regions of the exoskeleton that are modified to form a complex membrane with thin, membranous portions and thickened "ribs". Contracting the internal timbal muscles produces a clicking sound as the timbals buckle inwards. As these muscles relax, the timbals return to their original position producing another click.'

Those timbals are certainly effective, I can tell you that much. Apparently they can reach up to 120 dB, which is definitely on the loud side! On my way to work in the mornings, I cycle through a park with several big old trees, and on a hot morning the cicadas are audible as soon as I reach the park gate.

Oh, and here's a picture of a New Zealand Cicada, courtesy of Landcare Research:


Consider yourselves educated, readers in non-cicada-having countries!




*my brother :P

I'm still alive

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. I am working extremely hard at my day job, taking on some freelance editing work at the weekends, and just haven't found the energy to come up with anything interesting to blog about.

The Australian bushfires are certainly topical, but too heartbreaking to discuss at length. I will mention that the skies here were a weird yellow colour on Sunday night - I think the wind blew some of the smoke and ash in the direction of New Zealand.

God be with those poor people who have lost so much - loved ones, homes, pets, livestock, and businesses. I just can't imagine how awful it is for them right now.