Te Mahi Kai: The Language of food

By Lyn Potter

The theme for Maori Language week this year is Te Mahi Kai: The Language of Food.

Activities all over New Zealand will give people a chance to get their tongues around some Maori Language, and their teeth into some good kai. It should be a great week.

Since Maori Language Week began in 1975  Kiwis have been embracing the culture in increasing numbers and as food is something that all of us eat on a daily basis, Te Mahi Kai is a well-chosen theme.

Being on the receiving end of Maori hospitality I have had some of my best food experiences. I’ve watched in awe as hundreds of people were fed simultaneously, sitting at long trestle tables at Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia, thanks to amazing team work by the local community.

Once workmates invited me to share in a boil up of pork bones and puha (gathered fresh from the roadside) – an acquired taste, but it was good to try it!

I’ve seen a hangi being put down in the early morning, and whiled away the hours until it was opened and time to eat a plate heaped full of steamed potatoes, kumara, pumpkin and meat.

Just recently I had a taste of traditional Maori Food (with a contemporary twist) at the Auckland Museum on their  Maori Food Day (one of the excellent World on Your Plate events - part of their current Kai to Pie exhibition).

Well-known Maori chef Charles Royal brought in a large platter of traditional Maori foods such as pikopiko, miro berries and hãrore bush mushrooms - gathered from the bush for us to look at and sample.

Knowing how to find wild foods in the bush (and also knowing which ones can cause harm) can be crucial. Charles realized this when he trained as a chef in the army where he learnt the importance of survival skills from Vietnam veterans.

Charles explained how traditionally Maori people hunted and gathered food from forests, streams and rivers as well as growing crops such as potatoes and kumara in their tribal gardens.

They knew which wild foods to gather for food or medicinal purposes. Sadly some of that knowledge has been disappearing, and Charles who is part of the Slow Foods movement, recognized that if his culture should lose its food identity it might be impossible to retrieve it.

This led to his quest to learn more about the wild foods that have traditionally sustained Maori people. But it took some time before the elders were willing to share their knowledge with him.

The breakthrough came when one day an uncle brought him some pikopiko (an edible fiddlehead fern) and asked Charles if these would be good to put on the menu in his Rotorua restaurant. The tourists were intrigued, and loved it. Their interest fuelled his curiosity.

He sold his restaurant and went on a journey to harvest, research and eventually grow a new business to dry some of these herbs so that chefs in other restaurants could use them in their recipes.

He now combines this business with food tourism and takes small groups of guests on bushwalks where they learn about the different plants and ferns which are edible

Charles demonstrated some of his own recipes for us in which wild foods are used with a contemporary twist. He folded horopito (Maori native bush pepper) into a hummus, created a sunflower seed and pikopiko (bush asparagus) pesto, and also used the latter to decorate some freshly baked soda bread.

Then came the tasting. I especially enjoyed the pikopiko fronds which were deliciously crunchy, rather like raw asparagus. They looked very decorative arranged on the damper, and combined with the flax seeds made for a very creative and tasty interpretation of pesto.

We also sipped tea infused with kawakawa (Maori Bush basil).

At my granddaughter’s kindy in Pt Chevalier the kids are getting a great introduction to Maori culture. One of the best do’s they had this year was during Matariki when they had a pyjama party, each family brought something to add to a large pot of communal soup, and the kids stayed up long enough to watch the stars come up in the sky.

So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Miss 4 comes bounding into my kitchen this weekend and declares ’kei te hiakai ahau (I am hungry).

I have cooked up a pot of kumara soup to feed the whanau. To go alongside we’ll bake some of Charles’ damper, decorated (with pikopiko if I can lay my hands on some) and make his hummus and pesto. And she’ll eat an aporo (apple) and drink a glass of miraka (milk). I’m onto it!

More info on Charles Royal and his approach to Maori food

More info on Maori language week

• 6 cups self raising flour
• 2 1/2 cups cold water
• 2 dessert spoon blended flaxseed
• pinch salt

Method

Preheat oven to 200degC. Place flaxseed, flour and salt into bowl make well in centre then add water. Mix together making sure the dough is a soft consistency, try not to over work the dough. Place dough on a greased baking tray, wet hands & slightly press down On the dough approx 1 inch thick. Place into a preheated oven. Cook at 200degC for approx 30 mins. Test bread by placing a knife in the centre if the knife is clean the bread is cooked. Cooking Tip Place a damp cloth around bread and allow too cool. Break bread apart with hands and serve with horopito hummus, pikopiko pesto.

Pikopiko Pesto Recipe
by Charles Royal

source: newshub archive