Australia versus New Zealand pavlova debate: Who named it and how did we get the recipe?

By Caitlin Rawling, ABC Digital Journalist

Pavlova is a dessert both Australians and New Zealanders enjoy.

With fresh fruit and cream on top, it is understandable that both nations want to claim the meringue-based dessert as their own.

New Zealanders and Australians argue over many things, from who is better at rugby to the origins of Crowded House.

In one of the most hotly contested debates, New Zealand and Australia both claim credit for the pavlova.

As a New Zealander living in Australia, I wanted to figure out who was lying.

Here is a deep dive into where the dessert really came from.

The origins of the pavlova

When you hoe into a pavlova you're eating something with a history dating back almost 300 years.

Carmel Cedro, who is a cultural historian and has researched the history between femininity and Australian cookbooks, said the history of the dessert could be traced back to the late 1700s to the time of the Habsburg dynasty who were dukes, archdukes and emperors that ruled Austria from 1282 until 1918.

When they weren't intriguing amongst themselves and fighting their neighbours for control of central Europe, the aristocrats of the Austrian court developed a taste not for pav as we know it today, but for similar meringue-based desserts.

"[It had] that sort of aristocratic trend almost, because it was a very tricky sort of thing [to make]," Dr Cedro told ABC News.

Key ingredients like sugar, egg whites and fruit, meant it would have been an expensive dish to make.

"All these elements that are reality restrictive to who could actually make it," she said.

"You have got meringue dishes coming from there and perhaps not the modern conception of pavlova but the idea of meringues and desserts."

Dr Cedro said the dessert continued to evolve as we entered the 19th century, with meringue and other ingredients combined in dishes with three layers.

She said the proto-pav's stronghold was in German-speaking countries like Austria but it began to spread around the world in the 1800s as millions of people emigrated from Europe to places like Australia and New Zealand.

"It kept evolving through a lot of German-speaking places and when German immigrants started bringing it to different places.

"You have got it in like Britain and North America and then in South Australia as well, where there's lots of German immigrants that came out," she said.

"Again, it's not that modern conception of pavlova but you've got things that are similar. You've got meringue, fruit and cream."

A ballerina's connection

Anna Pavlova was a famous ballerina from Russia who began her career in the late 19th century.

The dancer was known for her famous role in The Dying Swan.

She would attract thousands of fans from across the globe and was dedicated to her career until she died from pneumonia in 1931.

Her last words reportedly were: "Get my swan costume ready."

Dr Cedro said Pavlova leant her name to the meringue-based dessert as well as a lot of other things.

"This part of popular culture is where people get inspired by a particular thing and it becomes a trend and everything gets named this," she explained.

"They used her name to sell a whole range of products, like beauty products, hosiery, [it wasn't] just attached to sweet food," she said.

In 1926, Anna Pavlova came to Australia and New Zealand on tour for a few months.

She was the first world-famous ballerina to tour around the world and visited major Australian cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

When arriving on a train from Melbourne to Sydney, a crowd of 10,000 people greeted the dancer on arrival.

Interestingly, when she departed to New Zealand, she left behind birds that she had collected in cages.

When it came to researching where the pavlova name and recipe came from, Dr Cedro said University of Otago's Dr Helen Leach found three different recipes in New Zealand cookbooks which were published before 1930, with the first one published in 1927 in a book called Davis Dainty Dishes, published by the Davis Gelatine company.

"One of them was a layered jelly because there was a gelatine company that wanted to promote their product, so they put out a recipe called pavlova," she said.

"There was a jelly, there was these little meringue kisses that were walnut and coffee flavoured, they were called pavlova, and then there was this layered pavlova dish," she said.

"It had a thin layer of meringue, fruit in the middle and another thin layer of meringue, so it was sort of like a sandwich and that was called pavlova."

Dr Leach recorded her findings in the book: The Pavlova Story: A slice of New Zealand's culinary history which was published in 2008.

Dr Cedro said the first Australian version of the dessert was recorded in 1935.

It came from German chef Herbet Sachse who was working at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth at the time.

"[It's] as close as we can make to our modern pavlova where it was a thick sort of meringue cake," she said.

This shows us New Zealand was the first out of the two nations to come up with the pavlova name but Australia was the first to come up with the recipe that is now known as the modern day pavlova.

'Guardians of the recipe'

Dr Cedro said the recipe was still around because Australians and New Zealanders had allowed it to evolve.

"I read somewhere that Australians and New Zealanders should be considered more guardians of the recipe or guardians of the dessert.

"We preserve it, we have made it still popular now."

She said pavlova was an "iconic" food which had hooked itself into the history of Australia.

"There is something about the legend around these sorts of foods that let us tell an idealised story of Australia.

"The idea of the pioneer woman in her bush kitchen, coming up with all these foods to nurture her family. It is really hooked into our conception of us."

Why is there a debate?

Dr Cedro said it was all about national pride.

"I think because we are both these countries of immigrants that have adapted a lot of things, to have something that is solely ours, solely unique, I think it is a bit of a want, [and] a desire.

"It's almost like a yearning for it."

So pavlova is part of our psyche, whichever side of the Tasman Sea we hail from.

"It's part of our Christmas tradition, it's part of that essential nature of how you conceive your place in the world."

When asked if the debate could ever be settled, she said there might not be any interest in having a definitive answer.

Because whatever evidence there was, there would still be more out there, she said.

"That's the thing about food, there is never one definitive recipe for one place.

"Even within the same sort of close region, you can have 'oh no, my Grandmother used to make it like this'.

"It's such a difference in that sort of tradition in that conception of how our ownership of food [works].

"Maybe it's okay it's still an ongoing debate where you can claim it as either [from NZ or Australia]."

Tips for a good pavlova

When it comes to making a pavlova, baker and author of Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice, Natalie Paull told ABC News you need to find a good recipe and try it out a few times.

Here are Paull's top tips to making a good pavlova:

• Bust the egg myths: Whites can be any temperature or age. Whites don't need to be whipped in a bowl rubbed with acidulant (lemon juice and vinegar). It is fake cake news. Egg whites will still whip with a speck of egg yolk in them.
• If using a stand mixer, whip at just under high speed. Full speed goes too fast and the meringue is likely to get less air and less stability.
• Pile your meringue high and flatten only a little - the pavlova will continue to spread as it bakes and can end up too wide!
• If moving the pavlova is tricky. Stop and do the Stephanie Alexander trick where you invert the cooked pavlova onto the platter and top the soft underbelly!

Paull said adding cream of tartar to the meringue would also help make a great pav.

"It is a mild acid that is like Pilates for egg whites - making them strong and flexible so they don't over whip to a chunky, weeping mess."

She uses a heat and whip method when she is baking a pavlova.

"Warm the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler before whipping until billowy then I add a little brown sugar for malty notes.

"If I use a classic pavlova method, I will add the sugar almost ridiculously slowly, a teaspoon every 10 seconds to build optimal structure and fluffiness."

Differences between Australian and New Zealand pavlovas

Although it has proven almost impossible to determine who invented the modern pavlova, both Paull and Dr Cedro have found there are slight differences between a pav from New Zealand a pav from Australia.

"Their's [New Zealand's] is more marshmallowy, whereas ours has got more of a crunchy part to it," Dr Cedro said.

"You've got the toppings where here [in Australia] passionfruit is a must, whereas [there in New Zealand], they would never do that, it's always kiwifruit.

"Even within this claim of [owning] it, it's still different."

Paull agreed and said she preferred an Australian pav because it had more crunch to it.

"A New Zealand pavlova has a little softer crust, more foamy centre and always topped with kiwifruit."

She makes pavlova roulades to get a maximum crunch.

"I also adore lashings of passionfruit and banana on top or sometimes strawberries and a chopped up Peppermint Crisp bar."

Paull said neither Australia or New Zealand owned the right to claim the pavlova as their own.

"So we should, right now, trade our conflict for spoons and eat more pavlova!"

Other dessert duels

Pavlovas are not the only dessert Australians and New Zealanders argue over. Lamingtons have also been known to cause a stir between the two nations.

Host of the 'Cake the podcast' Kaitlyn Sawrey said New Zealanders claimed the lamington was invented in New Zealand in 1888.

"There was a very cheeky article a number of years ago that came out of New Zealand that claimed that lamingtons were actually called wellingtons and they came out of New Zealand," Sawrey said.

Sawrey said if you looked at the article close enough, you would see that the publish date was 1 April.

"They based this on a piece of artwork that showed a pantry and a half eaten lamington and the painting was from 1888.

"It was a very elaborate April Fools joke from the University [of Auckland] and when you read it, it's very convincing."

Sawrey said lamingtons had been around for decades and were used for many different things.

"People had lamingtons for all kinds of things, so we used lamington drives to raise money for charity, for schools [and] all sorts of things."

Sawrey said there were even democracy lamingtons which were served during election time.

A lamington is a sponge cake that is dipped in chocolate and rolled in desiccated coconut.

It can also be covered in strawberry-flavoured jelly crystals that turns the lamingtons pink.

Sawrey said the first recipe of a lamington was published in the December 1900 edition of the newspaper Queensland Country Life.

"Most country or rural newspapers had a weekly column on household hints and recipes of course," author of The Lamington Enigma: A survey of evidence professor Maurice French said.

Professor French said people in the 1890s used to write to each other where they would enclose recipes into their writing.

"We have got to get away from the idea that the lamington was invented at a particular time at a particular place by one person," he said.

Professor French said the more "crucial thing" was where the lamington name came from.

"The traditional story is that it was named after Lord Lamington [who was] the governor [of Queensland] at the time."

French said he believed the lamington was named after Lady Lamington, Lord Lamington's wife.

"She studied home nursing as a student there, she was friends with Amy Schauer who was the cooking instructor at Brisbane Technical College.

"There is fairly good but circumstantial evidence that the cooking students at their annual break-up, which was attended by Lady Lamington, actually served up lamington cakes."

This was written in a memoir by one of the cooking students who attended the college at the time, he said.

"Unfortunately we can't date that story [but] it seems to be around 1900 - 1901."

Professor French said the dessert mainly spread throughout rural Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania.

"It was very popular in Tasmania and New Zealand, especially the southern island of New Zealand.

"The lamington appeared in Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand about six months after it appeared in Australia."

Professor French said the lamington could be claimed as both an Australian and a New Zealand delicacy.

- ABC