Blending of old and new, island and metropolitan foods, messages from family and the media, advice about good food and image management all bombard present day consumers. Any search to maintain a Pacific identity through food choices becomes complex. Households choose foods according to a number of criteria that include previous influences and new opportunities. A study of decisions about food access for low income households around Wellington revealed a large gap between desires and realities, and greater problems for large Maori and Pacific island families. With only $100 per week to spend on food, four factors dominated their choices: taste, time, health and cost. Foods had to suit family tastes, be quick to put on the table, be as healthy as possible and come within the budget. Fruit and vegetables and better cuts of meat were often too expensive. Sometimes McDonalds was the easy solution, though it took up a major part of the weekly food budget (Pollock, Dixon and Leota 1996). This survey alerts us to limitations to gastronomic options.

The gastronomic package reveals some of the alternative ways that blending is occurring. The foodstuffs, combinations, meals and eating situations, special food events and recognition of social relationships all form part of the messages and practices embedded in the presentation of identity through food.

Foodstuffs available in the Pacific today represent a long heritage of choosing varieties that suit tastes, seasonal availability and other local criteria. The concept of ‘good food’ is changing today, as it also did in the past. Taro is very expensive for everyday use in metropolitan households, as is fish when feeding a large group. Ice cream, cakes and desserts have intruded more into public eating occasions than ordinary daily meals. Coca-Cola and fried chicken have been heavily promoted by outside commercial agents and sweet biscuits are a grandmother’s solution to soothing a little one—the label ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is not a consideration then. Agencies such as Fiji Food and Nutrition Committee and Pacific Islands Nutrition and Dietitians Association, together with the Food and Agriculture Organization, all offer guidance on best choices among foods available. But ultimately households use foods that fit their own gastronomic ideals.

Meals and eating situations are more diverse for urban communities, whether in Apia or Auckland. Meal times for family units compete with other activities. The ‘ideal’ combination of taro and fish may remain for older family members, while for younger members the fast foods, fruits and vegetables may suit their fitness image. Nutritionists’ ideal meal of meat, vegetables and dessert may be too expensive or outside their identification. Distinctions between snack and meal foods depend on local interpretations, i.e. pizza might be either. Cooking styles may represent a blending, as when taro or fish is cooked in tinfoil in the electric oven; fried food, particularly chicken, has become highly favoured though nutritionally problematic, yet a highly acceptable gift when a family flies a ‘chilly bin’ full of KFC from Auckland to Rarotonga. A balanced meal has many dimensions in today’s world. Feasts remain an opportunity, or challenge, for families to lay out their identity through their contributions of taro, raw fish, chicken and cakes.

Social relationships are strengthened and challenged by the blendings of old and new gastronomic principles, and by exchanges of food that express what Cook Island people call aro’a (Alexeyeff 2004, 76). Feasts are important times for socialising around food, with much thought and planning as to which families contribute particular foods. Fish and beef (including canned corned beef, pisupo in Samoan) are all expensive in metropolitan settings, as are taro and the other imported iconic foods. However, the social mores of giving override any economic considerations, so that a family may take out a loan to buy their food contributions. Individual food choices are a major departure from the sociality of sharing an umu, as in rural island communities, or sending food across the seas. Those individuals with money to buy their lunch develop personal food preferences that may differ markedly from family food preferences. But when they exercise those preferences, they distance themselves from their family and its cultural gastronomic values. Expectations of what a family should or can offer to a funeral feast undergo public scrutiny and comment. Upholding social obligations through food is a key feature of reconstituting communities, particularly in overseas settings.

Food messages, whether as myths from the past, or recipes and routes of access to favoured island foods, are replacing the canoe and oral traditions. The telephone, texting and art all provide media both for motivating the oral and visual and other gastronomic senses, and for educating a wider public. All these options further enhance the diversity that has marked gastronomic transfers across time and space.

Blending has resulted in Pacific societies developing their own identifying foods together with a distinctive gastronomy. Over time, new foods and new ways of using those foods have been added to the gastronomy, not substituted. Good food is symbolised for Tongans and Pohnpeians by yams while for Fijians it is taro/dalo, and in the Marshall Islands it is breadfruit. When these groups come together in a metropolitan setting such as Honolulu or Wellington, each participating group ensures that its particular food is represented. Pacifica meetings in Wellington became noted for the Cook Island ‘mayonnaise’ that their people contributed to a Pacific event. Each Pacific community has selected its distinctive gastronomic features to distinguish its specific identity.