| Until 14 February 2010
Admission: Adult $7, Concession $5, Family Pass $15, Under
5s free.
Curated by Ngahiraka Mason
Stimulate your taste buds in this sumptuous visual feast offering
a variety of artistic flavours and textures.
Art reveals the central place of food in all cultures. Different
peoples develop their own relationships with food, from the careful
preparation of traditional dishes to the communal consumption of
celebratory feasts. Brueghel's A Village Fair and Lindauer's
Time of Kai depict communities observing these time-honoured
traditions. Renowned photographers Marti Friedlander, Gil Hanly
and Glenn Jowitt document Polynesian food practices. Jae Hoon Lee
looks at the global migration of food culture, composing his own
Kiwi feast from random Korean meals recreated in plastic.
Historically, food in art was often laden with symbolic meaning.
Pop artists radicalised the depiction of food with works like Warhol's
Campbell's Soup Can and Ruscha's Exploding Cheese.
Modern living has brought new approaches to food. Brian Brake's
photos of Picasso and friends speak to cafe culture, while Robin
White's Fish and chips, Maketu is an iconic emblem of New
Zealand cuisine.
Sustainability concerns contemporary artists like Ani O'Neill,
who uses recycled wool for her crocheted octopus stuffed with empty
plastic water bottles. Ruth Watson’s newly commissioned butter mountain
takes a post-recession look at New Zealand's relationship to the
global food trade.
Come to Auckland Art gallery this summer and revel in the luscious
beauty of food and the tactile, sensual qualities of art.
Taste is a mouth-watering experience not to be missed.
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MAJOR SPONSOR
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Neenish Tarts
From page 84 of Ladies, a Plate by Alexa Johnston
To download a printable version of the recipe
click here
Ingredients
sweet short crust pastry * 500 g
* Recipe below
For the filling
4 oz / 115 g butter
2 oz / 55 g icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence **
pinch cream of tartar pinch
1 tsp† gelatine
3 tbsp boiling water
** or ½ tsp finely grated lemon zest
† heaped
For the icing
1 cup / 120 g icing sugar
1 tbsp hot water
¼ tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp cocoap
1 tsp butter
This cornerstone of New Zealand afternoon teas originated in Australia, where
the first published version of the recipe dates from 1929. Neenish Tarts are
small, sweetened short crust pastry cases filled with mock cream and
distinctively iced – one half chocolate, the other plain. I compared nine
recipes in my cook-book collection – interestingly, there were none in my Aunt
Daisy books – and found few significant variations. Two versions had
chocolate-flavoured pastry cases and only the Edmonds Cookery Book used
sweetened condensed milk in the filling; the others all used butter and sugar
creamed and set with gelatine. The clever icing method is Australian, based on
the instructions in Margaret Fulton’s Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery ‡. But be
warned, it is still a little tricky to get those halves looking perfect.
MAKING THE PASTRY CASES
- Roll out the pastry and use it to line 12–18 patty tins.
- Prick the bases lightly with a fork and chill the cases for about
30 minutes before baking them at 350°F/180°C for about 10 minutes until they
are golden brown and crisp.
MAKING THE FILLING
- Cream the softened butter and sugar until very light and fluffy,
then mix in the vanilla essence and the cream of tartar.
- Add the gelatine (dissolved in the boiling water), a teaspoon at a time.
You should have a creamy mixture.
- Fill the cooled cases, level the tops and leave in a cool place
until firm.
FINISHING
- Put the icing sugar into a heatproof bowl, mix in 1 tbsp hot water and
heat over simmering water until the icing softens. Add the vanilla, then use
immediately to ice one half of each tart.
- Add the sifted cocoa and butter to the remaining icing, return the bowl
to the heat and stir until glossy. Add more hot water if needed.
- Ice the other halves of the tarts. (By heating the icing you ensure
that it will set quickly and avoid the two colours running together.) This
is just enough icing for 12 tarts; make more if you need to.
‡ Margaret Fulton, Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery, Octopus Books Australia,
Sydney, 1983, page 432.
A VARIATION
If all this sweet icing and filling seems too much, you will get almost as
delighted a response if you offer Pineapple Cream Tarts. Just put a little
drained crushed pineapple into your pastry cases and top them off with a piped
swirl or a spooned dollop of whipped cream. A small piece of pineapple on top –
or a few pistachio nuts – and they’re ready to go.
Short Crust Pastry
From page 76 of Ladies, a Plate by Alexa Johnston
Sweet Short Crust
8 oz / 225 g flour
4 oz / 115 g butter
1 egg yolk
pinch salt pinch
1 oz / 25 g caster sugar
2 tbsp cold water
Of course you can buy short crust pastry frozen in sheets or
blocks if you wish, although it is unlikely to have been made with much butter
and the flavour will not be as good as if you make it yourself. With a food
processor in the kitchen, the making of short crust pastry is literally a matter
of minutes. Buying pastry
was not an option for New Zealand women 50 years ago when few had freezers to
store it. Most of the community cook books included a whole pastry section with
tips like ‘Cold in the making, brisk in the baking’, an old adage about
successful pastry and worth remembering. It means, keep the butter cold, work
quickly and always use a hot oven. The recipes below can be used for small
tartlets or large tarts.
RUBBING THE BUTTER INTO THE FLOUR
- Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, cut in the cold butter and toss
until well coated with flour.
- Now rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture
is like breadcrumbs, lifting and sprinkling the mixture as you go. Just use
your fingertips, since they are colder than the palms of your hands. You
could also use a pastry blender, or the food processor, working in short
bursts to keep everything cool.
- Add the sugar to the mixture. If using a food
processor, tip the mixture into a bowl.
MIXING THE PASTRY
- Using a round-bladed table knife, stir in the egg
yolk with about 2 tbsp of very cold water until the mixture
begins to clump together a little.
- Using your fingertips, gather the mixture into a ball, adding a little
more water if it seems too crumbly.
- Work into a soft, not sticky, mixture which leaves the sides of the bowl
clean. Make into a rectangular block, wrap in waxed paper and put in the
fridge or a very cool place to relax before you roll it out.
- Allow at least 30 minutes of resting time. This pastry will keep for
a week in the fridge, well wrapped, and for at least a month in the freezer.
Makes about 1 lb / 425 g pastry.
Pastry Tip
You could replace 2 oz/55 g of the butter with lard in the above
recipe, since lard gives pastry a crisp, short texture and makes it easier to
handle.
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Neenish Tarts recipe by Alexa Johnston
Milkbread recipe by Monique Brik
Homemade chocolates recipe by Arno Sturny
Pasta Dough recipe by Henry Spence


Robin White
Fresh Bread (final state), 1998
woven pandanus, commercial dye, traditional dye,
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Peter Peryer
Doughnuts, 1983
photograph,
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki,
purchased 1994.

Gottfried Lindauer,
The Time of Kai, 1907
oil on canvas,
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki,
gift of Mr H E Partridge, 1915.

Andy Warhol,
Campbell's Soup Can, C1965
screenprint,
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1976,
© 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Licensed by Viscopy
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