Wild Foods Festival in Hokitaka

March 18, 2017 · by Dano · in New Zealand

One of the dangers of having an internet savvy wife is the risk of her finding something like the Wild Foods Festival, and buying tickets. Not that I’m squeamish or not willing to try new things, but a food festival that advertises grubs, grasshoppers and fish-eye poppers probably wouldn’t be my first choice. Actually, the festival is quite calm compared to earlier years according to some of the locals. They no longer allow possum soup or roadkill patties. Still, grubs, both alive and fried, and lots of different organ meat left me a little hungry once we left.

Not to be intimidated, we had to try something, just not too bazaar. So we hit up the kangaroo chunks, not bad since I had kangaroo in OZ. Next was the bacon buttie. Really a challenge, fried bacon on wheat bread with butter and fried onions. I managed to force this one down.

About as adventurous as I can get with food!

A quick pass through the “brain” section and on to listen to the NZ Army Band. These guys are great! They played all kinds of swing music from the 50’s & 60’s and a lot of crooner tunes like, Mac the Knife and Ney\w York, New York. Really a great way to spend your time in the Army!

Moving right along and getting a little thirsty, we stopped to try a New Zealand bomb. This is the Kiwi’s version of a Jager bomb. Pretty good but now Collette wants to fight everyone.

Best part of the festival are the costumes. Lots of people get into the party and dress up as pretty much anything they want from little woman on the prairie, to dinosaurs. Lots of fun. Knowing this ahead of time, I went as an American wiseass and Collette dressed up as a controlling wife. We had a great time.