Kiwis get a trifle tart over pudding
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Kiwis-get-a-trifle-tart.5164246.jpPublished Date: 12 April 2009
By Marc Horne
ANTIPODEAN relations have turned a trifle frosty over which nation can claim the pavlova as its just dessert.
New Zealand's new prime minister, John Key, has stirred up a row by asserting that the meringue pudding topped with cream and tropical fruit has Kiwi origins. But Australians have long believed it was created in 1935 by a chef called Bert Sachse, at Perth's Esplanade Hotel, in honour of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who visited Australia in 1926 and 1929.
However, Helen Leach, an academic at New Zealand's Otago University, has found a pavlova recipe in a 1933 Mothers' Union cookbook, and another in a 1929 rural magazine.
Both call the dessert a pavlova, stipulate the same ingredients used by modern cooks and recommend the same cooking method. Historians point out that Anna Pavlova ventured across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand on both her visits.
Key is irritated by Australia's long-standing claim to have invented the pavlova, which he dismissed as "ridiculous". He urged his neighbour and ally to acknowledge the dessert's New Zealand's origins – and to renounce other treasured New Zealand exports, such as the legendary racehorse Phar Lap, to which Australia also lays claim.
While Australians consider the dessert one of their national dishes, Key said: "It's totally ridiculous for Australians to claim that they have pavlova, or Phar Lap, or any of those iconic New Zealand items. Everyone knows that they're ours and for Australia to claim ownership of them is quite inappropriate."
Phar Lap, a thoroughbred gelding, was born in New Zealand in 1926 but raced in Australia, winning two consecutive Melbourne Cups.
The horse died in mysterious circumstances in the US in 1932 and his body parts are held in museums on both sides of the Tasman Sea.
Australians also claim as theirs the temperamental Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, who was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia with his family at the age of four. Key joked that "on a bad day, we'll lend you Russell Crowe".
