Dave Mollard’s Change is Constant: Iconic food of Palmerston North past and present

Who remembers the banana splits at Wimpy in The Square? Photo / Ian Matheson City Archives

OPINION

After a few drinks to farewell a colleague, my friend and I took a walk down memory lane to Golden Takeaways for a fish burger each. GTs has been a mandatory late-night stop for thousands of Palmerstonians over the 40-plus years it’s been around.

The prices are great and many a slightly tipsy patron has used the oil of GTs’ kai as a post-drinking elixir to minimise the effects of the alcohol they had recently consumed.

The fish burger triggered memories of wonderful nights out on the town, at the Royal, the Carlton or the legendary Fitz. Th’ Dudes or DD Smash blasted over the PA as we consumed our $4.20 jugs of amber ale. After the pubs closed at 11pm we would stop at GTs before a hikoi down to Exchequers nightclub, which stayed open until 2am.

Of course, those days are over now but the fish burgers still remain, and while we munched on ours we started to reminisce about the iconic food of Palmerston North, past and present.

The smorgasbord and karaoke at China Inn, a banana split at Wimpy, a sally lunn from the Hot Bread Shop and a pottle of Snifters at the Odeon Theatre instantly jumped to mind.

The steamed buns of Uncle Sam’s Americana burgers, a slice of margherita from Pizza Piazza and the custard squares at the Loft cafe all had lasting memories. Of course, no historic list of Palmy gastronomic delicacies would not be complete without a Cobblestone mince pie.

We have moved on now and the GTs’ fish burger is the only thing that has not changed. But we have new iconic food in our city, the eggroll from Bing House, the hokkien noodles from Phnom Penh, bubble tea at Black Pearl Cafe and, of course, the yum cha from Chinatown. Indian Summer does the best butter chicken and cheesy naan outside of Delhi.

Of course, it’s not all Asian food. The ribeye at Aberdeen, the chicken pie from Pioneer Bakery and the dessert pizza from the Pizza Club are all worthy of praise. If you only have $12.50, then a voyage to the Cobb for lunch will make you happy and if you are up early on a Saturday, get some fried bread from Albert Street Market.

Someone once told me Palmy has more fast food franchises per head of population than any other city in Aotearoa. I don’t know if that is true but we do have plenty of amazing independent kai sellers in our city. There is no excuse to buy food from these international chains that in my opinion don’t care about us.

Kia kaha Papaioea.

Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.