Alison McKee: Indy Night Cook Book Club at Wardini Napier
Schedule
Fri, 05 Jun, 2026 at 08:00 am
UTC+12:00Location
44 Hastings St, Napier South, Napier 4110, New Zealand | Napier, HB
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Join us for the return of Cook Book Club with our very special guest, Alison McKee! She'll be talking about her latest book, Refreshment on Rail: New Zealand Railways 1878-1950, among other things, and might even treat us to an appropriate snack :)Alison McKee trained as a chef before completing a MA in Gastronomy, University of Adelaide. As a member of The New Zealand Food History Society, she regularly writes and presents papers at their symposiums.
She is also the proud owner of a railway cottage located in Napier.
Here's what the book is about:
The refreshment branch of New Zealand Railways was a significant undertaking. Over many years the department made available refreshment room leases throughout the railway system, some being replaced when NZR commenced dining car operation on key services. Dining cars were eventually superseded as a war time economy measure, with those lines reverting back to refreshment room operations. These consisted of either counter refreshment rooms or sit-down dining rooms, providing travellers nourishment at all hours of the day and night. Eventually running all rooms
themselves, the food sometimes came under vicious attack by the patrons, with head office sometimes the recipients of terse letters or returned food!
Author Alison McKee also covers various individual refreshment rooms, railway bookstall operations, foods favoured and shunned by patrons, railway picnics, special occasions, railway crockery, hostess service, sale of liquor, royal tour dining, rationing, footplate food, and numerous recipes of the era.
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Where is it happening?
44 Hastings St, Napier South, Napier 4110, New Zealand, 44 Hastings St, Napier South, Napier 4110, New Zealand, NapierEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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