How Kiwis stole the feijoa

There’s something really democratic about feijoas. Kate Evans

For most Kiwis, the taste of feijoa will conjure memories of mum in a baking frenzy, desperate to use the bountiful fruit before it rotted. Or gorging on them in the backyard until you couldn’t eat dinner. Yet few realise this beloved Kiwiana icon, the ‘‘taste of home’’, comes from South America. It’s not the first food that Kiwis have claimed. Kiwifruit were Chinese gooseberries, fish and chips came from England, and Australians will swear black and blue that the pavlova was theirs first. Yet, all are embraced in the broad reach of Kiwiana. As a girl, Raglan’s Kate Evans would go straight from the afternoon school bus to the feijoa tree, to eat as many as she could with her sister. Now, her childhood passion has turned into a profession. Evans, a self-proclaimed ‘‘feijoa nerd’’, has been awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to research her first book: a biography of the humble feijoa. She will travel to Brazil, Colombia and France to unravel the fruit’s colourful history and how it wound up being known as New Zealand’s fruit. The journalist lived abroad for 12 years and pined for the distinctively gritty, yet creamy, fruit. There’s something about the floral smell, the indescribable taste, the feel of them under your feet. And something else – the sweetly intangible feeling of home. ‘‘They’re somehow a part of New Zealand identity and we love them more than anywhere else. ‘‘There’s something really democratic about them. People don’t buy them as much. They grow on streets, they grow over the neighbours hedge, we bring them into work. ‘‘They’re something people share freely in a way we don’t see with many other things.’’ So it was was surprising to learn other countries had close connections with the fruit, too. In Colombia, a feijoa festival is held every year, which Evans will visit for her research. Feijoa grower, lover and supplier Heather Smith – who moved from the US to New Zealand almost 23 years ago – first tasted feijoa at a restaurant in a dessert. By chance, she had bought land and had wondered what to grow. ‘‘I was like oh my gosh, what is this? That sort of answered our question.’’ Despite its hybrid beginnings, feijoa has become Kiwi, she said. Perhaps New Zealand’s semitropical climate – which makes the fruit big, sweet and abundant – helps. Smith planted 2000 trees and began Heather’s Feijoas. She even freeze dries the fruit and extracts the essence from the fruit, so its scent is available all year. Its smell and taste has a strong emotional effect on Kiwis: ‘‘They close their eyes and when they open their eyes, they’re more sparkly and there’s always a smile.’’ ‘‘Mostly,’’ she says, ‘‘they’ve sat under a tree and eaten buckets and buckets.’’