Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Pavzilla!

Who knows how much of it is true, but I've just been perusing the Wikipedia article on pavlova, directed there by Deborah in a post at her blog In a Strange Land wherein she firmly claims the pav as the invention of her home country and who am I to argue. The true truth about pavlova is probably one of those things forever lost.

I was disappointed to see that while Wikipedia acknowledges that the dessert was invented in homage to Russian ballet legend Anna Pavlova,




who was touring Australia and New Zealand at the time, it doesn't mention the fact(oid?) that the white and foofy appearance of a pavlova was meant to imitate Pavlova's costume for her most famous dance, The Dying Swan.




But this is the best bit:
Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum in Wellington, celebrated its first birthday in February 1999 with the creation of the world's largest pavlova, named "Pavzilla", cut by the Prime Minister of New Zealand of the time, Jenny Shipley.

I'm not sayin' nuthin'.


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5 comments:

  1. Alexis, Baron von HarlotApril 14, 2009 at 7:28 PM

    Foofy. That's going straight to my list of words for everyday use.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ZarquonApril 14, 2009 at 8:10 PM

    Now you have a name for your next blog when this one fills up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DeborahApril 14, 2009 at 9:32 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DeborahApril 14, 2009 at 9:35 PM

    Anna Pavlova dancing the dying swan:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3kPxWUbU50Phar Lap, John Clark, Crowded House, Russell Crowe.... the list goes on.

    Actually, Crowded House is a margin call, and I think it falls on the Australian side, and Russell Crowe you can have!

    And who really cares, anyway. A well made pav is marvellous.

    ReplyDelete
  5. M-HApril 14, 2009 at 10:38 PM

    I love 'foofy'. We just bought a new sofa and it's definitely foofy. On the pav, I understood that it was invented in NZ but named a little later in Aus. But, as you say, the mists of time have engulfed its origins anyway, so we should just enjoy it.

    ReplyDelete

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