The relationship of the New Zealand cuisine with the English explains a lot...

For example, it doesn't seem to be possible to buy unsweetened salad dressing...the sweetened kind of doesn't quite meet our expectations.
For the salad, we tried to buy corn...we tried.... the can looked nice from the outside, a little less from the inside. A close analysis of the label then explained the whole thing: corn, cream style means that in addition to corn, there is also a lot of corn starch, sugar and salt in the can. Kind of special.

After a little more than a week of toast, we wanted to eat something familiar again, so we tried to bake a plait. Finding the right (or least wrong) flour was the first challenge. With the yeast it became a little more difficult. We finally decided on yeast granules. When the whole dough did not rise as desired, we consulted a cookbook of the yeast manufacturer. The yeast apparently needs 37 degrees to "work" optimally. We will therefore try again later. But the first braid was a welcome change from the toast bread.

Regarding spices, I had learned something interesting today. One of the English teachers explained that she cooks without salt. However, she said she remembers that her grandmother used to use salt.

Cheese is sold in the supermarket in blocks (compare butter), it is mainly Edam.
On one shelf we discovered "Swiss Style Cheese", which was labeled Gruyere. Strangely enough, it had special jagged holes, big and many small ones. According to our memory ( and Wikipedia ) Gruyere has no holes?!?!?

Speaking of cheese...
Apparently cheese is not eaten as much in Asia as it is in Switzerland. When I had so usually finger-thick cheese on a cracker, I was looked at by some Asian women with sooo big eyes as if they had not known so far that you can eat cheese. They then explained that they eat such a piece of cheese as I had on the cracker in a week.

It's not all funny and scary though!
For example, we were allowed to enjoy very good salami. Further, in addition to some "special" fruit juices, there are also very good juices to buy.