Maori Cuisine

Maori cuisine is the traditional food culture of the native Maori people of New Zealand(Aotearoa). The Maori people were most likely the first people to inhabit New Zealand, bringing some of their cultural roots with them from Polynesia and developing many unique traditions over centuries living closely with the distinct land and sea of New Zealand.

Food is traditionally cooked in earth ovens called hangi, especially for family gatherings and other significant occasions. Hangi cooking uses heated stones to smoke, steam, and bake food wrapped in large leaves.

Preserved food was kept in raised storehouses. Hollowed gourds and bulb kelp was used to store food.

Ingredients

When early Maori settlers migrated to New Zealand, they brought sweet potato(kumara), purple yam(uwhi), taro, bottle gourd(hue), and ti plant.

Maori people also incorporated many useful native plants into their diet. Native herbs are used as seasoning in Maori cuisine such as the spicy horopito and another herb called kawakawa. Seaweed(korengo) is also used as a seasoning. Sow thistle(puha) is common in Maori cuisine and sometimes used interchangeably with watercress(kowhitiwhiti), which is also common.

Ferns are abundant in New Zealand. Fiddleheads from a type of fern called pikopiko are used as well as fiddleheads from tree ferns called mamaku, the tallest ferns in New Zealand. Indigenous bracken(rarauge) has a starchy rhizome(aruhe) which was widely eaten historically.

Maori potato(taewa) was introduced by Europeans and became popular since it was easier to grow than the traditional sweet potato variety. Europeans influenced Maori culture in many ways, such as introducing new agricultural practices and livestock.

Seafood is abundant around New Zealand. Mussel(kuku) is particularly popular. Other seafood includes oyster(tio), scallop(tipa), abalone(paua), freshwater crayfish(koura), eel, and various fish including kahawai and whitebait(inanga). A variety of sea urchin(kina) is sometimes used.

Moa, a large flightless bird, was eaten historically until it became extinct. Other birds, such as young shearwaters(titi), are prized in Maori cuisine. Huhu grub is another local delicacy.

Dishes

• hangi: baked or steamed meat and root vegetables
• rewena bread(paraoa rewena): bread leavened with fermented potato
• boil up: meat, root vegetable, and leafy vegetables boiled together
• seasoned raw seafood
• toroi: seafood in pickled sow thistle or other greens