Making Lemonade Out of Overpriced, Inaccessible Subpar Lemons
Students are being set up to fail starve.
Last week, Salient reported on how unaffordable campus food had become (to the point where Krisha’s famous $6 plates are devastatingly no longer $6). Consistently buying food is not an economical option, so logically, students turn to cooking for themselves.
This is somehow just as unaffordable, since we don’t have access to cheap produce.
For students living around the CBD, the closest supermarkets are either New World or Countdown. Supermarkets in the city have considerably higher prices than their counterparts. Thorndon New World is notorious for being the most expensive New World in the country. My jaw dropped and my wallet wept when I paid $5 for a small head of broccoli and $8 for two zucchini during my last Countdown visit. Yet the closest PAK’nSAVE to the CBD is in Kilbirnie, making it inaccessible to many students.
The VUW Fruit and Vege Co-Op used to be the answer to our produce woes… until it died at the end of 2021. Katie Sharp, one of the co-op’s coordinators, said there weren’t enough students ordering from the VUW co-op to make it financially viable, but that other co-ops still existed around the city.
Our lack of access to affordable ingredients is why student potlucks never fail to amaze me. Some of you survive off plain pasta and toast throughout the week, only to pull up to a potluck with a chungus shepherd's pie or a hefty tray of perfectly-iced cupcakes. Practicing manaakitanga through sharing kai is a beautiful thing, especially when that kai is made in a decrepit flat kitchen with a minimal budget.
When students manage to make sweet lemonade out of overpriced, inaccessible subpar lemons, that's credit to our creativity and resilience.
For anyone attending a potluck soon—TikTok tells me ‘butter boards’ are all the rage and have usurped charcuterie boards. Hop on this bandwagon before it goes out of style, because fuck buying cheese and olives in this economy.
You can garnish your butter board with parsley that you plucked from the Wellington City Council gardens around the train station. Alternatively, use rosemary that you foraged from the Botans when you thought no one was looking. Like I said, creativity and resilience.
In this week’s Food Issue, we visit the Harbourside Markets, discuss how food and cultural identity intersect, reminisce about nostalgic recipes, review coffee hacks and milkshakes, and lament over discontinued dressings.
In the wise words of Ratatouille’s Auguste Gusteau: Anyone can cook (even broke ass students).
Ngā manaakitanga,
Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)