Insults continue to bounce like perfectly formed marshmallows across the Tasman over the invention of the pavlova. Did it originate in New Zealand in 1926, coinciding with a visit by the ballerina Anna Pavlova, or in Australia some years later? In fact,its origins may go back much further and have little to do with home chefs. It’s a rivalry that has also spawned a lot of words. Australian researcher and writer Michael Symons notes “the pavlova is not merely a cluster of recipes and results on a plate. It is also a cluster of personal memories, public myths, treasured ideals and associated names …” The fascination with the iconic dessert has now inspired an anthology of writings on the subject, Pav Deconstructed, from which we present the following edited extracts.
Bringing pavlova home
By Andrew Paul Wood and Annabelle Utrecht
In 1971, Australian journalist and humorist Ross Campbell wrote in The Australian Women’s Weekly that, while visiting the Harrods cake department in London, he encountered a pavlova labelled in a way that was shocking: “This cake was created in New Zealand in honour of the dancer Anna Pavlova.”
In the article, Campbell went on to say, “The pavlova, surely, is an Australian invention. It must be, because it is made with our native passionfruit. Furthermore, on closer inspection I found that the Harrods ‘pavlova cake’ had no passionfruit on it, only peaches. My faith in Harrods was badly shaken.”
Outraged, Campbell rebuked the department store in a letter, and the card was removed. The Australian claim to the pav is a tenacious and hard-fought one. The most commonly given story is that, in 1934 or 1935, Bert Sachse, a chef at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, invented the cake to retroactively honour the eponymous ballerina’s Australian tours of 1926 or 1929. This is almost certainly false – recipes for identical meringue cakes under different names abounded in cookbooks at the time. The “Dying Swan” had a tendency to license her name for everything from soups to frogs’ legs – and even a 1911 New Zealand glacé dessert, Strawberries Pavlova – so there is nothing particularly unusual in the naming.
The tradition of a New Zealand origin for the pavlova is likewise as substantial as the cake’s marshmallowy middle. It can’t be pinned down to a name or kitchen but is usually dated to the ballerina’s 1926 tour of Aotearoa. One of the main sources for such an attribution, Anna Pavlova’s biographer Keith Money, was a New Zealand expat living in London, so this may be a flicker of patriotism on his part. Money claimed it was invented in a hotel in Wellington and that it was dressed in kiwifruit, inspired by one of the dancer’s costumes.
Regardless of who invented it, dessert cakes of meringue, whipped cream and fruit were well established in Australia and New Zealand by the 1920s, and the pavlova cold war was well entrenched by the 1950s. Queen Elizabeth II must have been thoroughly bilious at the thought of one more mouthful of pav on her coronation tour of the Commonwealth in 1953-54. Pavlova featured at many of the 110 special functions Her Majesty attended in New Zealand, including the Gore Women’s Club dinner, whose menu offered Peach Pavlova Cake.
The Queen then went on an eight-week tour of Australia. The mayor of Greater Wollongong, Alderman Jerry Kelly, awkwardly recounted: “The Queen had a little of everything that was on the menu. She had something of each course, excepting the meringue passionfruit sweet. She baulked at that. I think it was the passionfruit. If we had had strawberries instead of the passionfruit, I think it would have been a different story. We tried to get strawberries but couldn’t. The Duke had the lot.”
The 1977 issue of The Good Food Guide (the guide book to British restaurants) describes pavlova as from New Zealand, but the 1978 issue calls it Australian.
Michael Symons wrote to the editor, Hilary Fawcett, who replied: “There does seem to be some controversy as to whether the wretched thing originated in New Zealand or Australia and I was reduced to doing a straw-vote count.”
By the millennium, the rivalry was getting ridiculous. In 1999, Te Papa celebrated its anniversary with “Pavzilla”, a 45m-long Guinness record breaker. Aussie pulses quickened and, as Chloe Osborne wrote in the American foodie magazine Saveur: “… The Sydney Morning Herald called this assessment ‘a delusion’.”
“Those bloody Australians,” spat back Sarah-Kate Lynch, then food editor of the New Zealand Herald. “It’s so typical. They’re always trying to steal our best ideas.” These sentiments were repeated and exchanged on both sides of the Tasman Sea for several days.
It was like 1981 and the underarm bowling incident all over again. Dr Helen Leach, author of The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History, stated boldly: “It is now clear that New Zealand has won this particular contest, using the name pavlova by 1927, developing the large soft-centred meringue by at least 1934 and putting the name and the dish together about the same time, which was definitely before 1935.” Thus dismissing the Bert Sachse claim.
However, she neglects to mention an article in a Tasmanian newspaper, The Advocate, which inferred pavlovas were already popular across Australia in 1935, or Bon Accord’s meringue pavlova submission to the Adelaide Chronicle in late 1935, or the public request in a 1932 Australian newspaper for a pavlova cake recipe.
In fact, what we know as “pavlova” has existed for more than two centuries – similar confections go back to the 18th-century Viennese imperial court and beyond, with names such as Windtorte and Schaum Torte. Versions have also been found in North America, the United Kingdom and even Russia. Contra Leach, they were not invented by home cooks but were born in the kitchens of professional chefs, within the domain of haute cuisine.
Nonetheless, the continuing heat of this trans-Tasman pavlova rivalry demonstrates how much New Zealanders (and Australians) have taken pavlova to our hearts – to us, it is communion. It is community. It is culture.
Pavlova
By Christall Lowe (Ngāti Kauwhata, Tainui and Ngāti Maniapoto), originally published in Kai – food stories and recipes from my family table.
Back when I was a teenager, we had some wonderful neighbours across the road. We pretty much lived at each other’s houses. One day, the dads decided to have a pavlova bake-off, which ended up turning into a pavlova war that lasted months. Every few days, one would take their pavlova over to the other, proud as punch, hoping to out-do the last one and be crowned the “pav master”. I don’t know who ended up winning that competition, but we sure did eat a lot of pavlova in those days!
CHRISTALL LOWE’S RECIPE:
Makes one large, luscious pavlova
- 6 egg whites
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
- 1½ cups caster sugar
- 2 tsp cornflour
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Set oven rack below the centre of the oven, and preheat oven to 140°C. Grease a large baking tray and lay a piece of baking paper on top.
Using an electric beater or stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar in a large metal bowl until stiff. Beat in the caster sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time every 20 seconds, and continue whisking until the sugar has dissolved (rub a little of the mixture between the tips of your fingers: if it no longer feels gritty, it’s done).
Add the remaining ingredients while beating slowly. Beat for another 30 seconds. Spoon the pavlova mixture into the centre of the baking tray and, using a palette knife or spatula, shape the pavlova into an even circular shape. Make some upward sweeps all along the sides of the pavlova to help give it structure as it cooks, but be careful not to play with the mixture too much or it’ll lose some of its oomph. I tend to pile my pavlova mixture up high and flatten it at the top, rather than have it spread out too much.
The pavlova will spread out quite a bit as it cooks anyway. Place it in the oven and immediately turn the oven down to 100°C.
Bake the pavlova for 2 hours (resist the urge to open the oven door), then turn the oven off and leave it to cool without opening the door for at least 2 more hours. The pavlova will likely crack in places as it sinks – that is normal. Just before you’re ready to serve, decorate with fresh whipped cream and seasonal fruit: they cover a multitude of imperfections!
Note:
- You can keep your pavlova for 2 days in an airtight container before adding the cream.
Edited extract from Pav Deconstructed, an anthology compiled by Kathy Derrick, Jac Jenkins and Claire Gordon (Pavlova Press NZ, RRP $85)
