My Food bag is a New Zealand company that delivers meal kits with the exact ingredients. It is similar to Hello fresh in the UK.
The first I heard of My food bag was when I had returned from London for Christmas in 2013. At first I thought that Nadia was some new family member by the way they all spoke about her. I heard snippets of conversation, what would Nadia do? Is this one of Nadia’s? What does Nadia say? This new concept had hit New Zealand like a storm. Dinner party conversations at the time mainly consisted of which package people had gone with, how amazing it is and how economical it was especially as there was always enough left over to take for your lunch the next day.
So I turned up in New Zealand for a surprise visit in the summer of 2013. I had not had a Christmas at home for 13 years so was looking forward to our classic family Christmas dinner. I was wrong! Nadia had decided to make an appearance at our table that year along with thousands of other houses throughout New Zealand. Facebook was awash with Nadia’s chocolate pavlova and other carefully measured and seasoned seasonal dishes. Cooking Christmas dinner out of a box sounded so wrong.
Since that Christmas I am now back on my fourth visit. Each time I come back I am expecting the novelty to have worn off and people to have gone back to being real cooks. But this is not the case. In fact, the cult seems stronger than ever. Each fridge and cupboard I open up is still filled with little packets of sachets and packets of individual portions of herbs and spices.
My food bag prides itself on sending the exact measures of ingredients and herbs and spices that you will need. If this really is the case why is nearly every pantry and fridge in New Zealand bursting with extra sachets? Freezers are overflowing with individual portions of duck breasts and venison steaks.
In London we often joke how when we meet up with friends, the first thing people talk about is your journey there. "I came on the Central line and then the Bakerloo was down so I ended up catching the overland and it was quite quick really, Im going to do that next time etc". Here in New Zealand they don't talk about your commute or even the weather it takes probably 4 minutes and people start discussing My Food Bag. It is almost like a strange religious sect.
Personally this whole set up is not my cup of tea but I’m willing to try. I am staying at my friend Stefs in Auckland. She goes off to work, and as she will be home late I suggest I make dinner. I am given the choice of two options both involving chicken. One was basically a chicken stir fry with noodles and the other was chicken and cauliflower. I opt for the chicken stir fry. How hard can this be? I have a little recipe card and instructions on where to find my set ingredients. The problem was, my food bag didn’t know I was coming so Stef had to buy some more chicken to make the two person meal go further. I felt stressed cooking this even though it was the type of thing I had made many times before but now I had to follow the recipe and use my set ingredients. I was worried I would accidentally use Thursdays seasoning instead of Mondays and leave them high and dry when they make their chicken katsu later in the week. It took me much longer to make as I had to keep referring to the recipe but it turned out okay. The chicken to veg ratio was a bit high, as we had bought the extra chicken, there was now too much.
Now I am back in New Plymouth staying at the sisters. She is a big fan of My food bag and has had it since it first started. Now the kids have all left home she has graduated to the gourmet package. Last night she pulled out seven cards to ask what I wanted for dinner the following night. I whittled it down to one and she rummaged through all the sachets and packets to find my set of ingredients.
We opted for the Sesame salted chicken with Japanese miso risotto.
The verdict: It took longer than I would expect to make this as I had to keep referring to the recipe rather than using my initiative. However, it was pretty good if I might say so myself.
Tomorrow night I need to master "Duck tacos with ho-sin sour cream and sesame".
I never heard of it, but possibly not the thing Mum or Dad would be into. That’s good for the company they have been around for so long, they are doing something right