Maori Food
As soon as the introductions were done, our Maori hosts invited us into their home for lunch. Louise served us a delicious banquet including battered fish, roast chicken with cranberry sauce, potato bake, a green salad and fried bread. It was largely a Western-style meal, but the Maori influence was clear, particularly in the fried bread. These matchbox-sized pieces were still greasy with the oil they’d been cooked in and were tasty cold, though I imagined they would have been much better fresh out of the pan. Later, when Bob was showing us around his yard, he pointed out the wire frames used to hold hot stones for a hangi — a communal roast cooked for large groups. First they make a fire stacked five logs high and pile on the stones to warm up. Then they dig a trench, choosing the length depending on the number of diners. When the stones are ready, they’re packed into the wire baskets and lowered into the trench. Food is then placed on top with meat closest to the stones and vegetables above that. These days, they use a canvas cover to keep the heat in, but it was probably made from flax in the past. The sheet is held down by dirt around the edges and balloons up with the heat. When the sheet collapses after about three hours, the meal is ready. It’s a lot of work and they don’t bother for less than twenty people (unfortunately for us), but Bob says that it’s not much more effort to cook for three hundred. Bob picked some feijoa fruit from trees next to the house and some banana passionfruit during our tour, both of which were delicious.