Hanging out is half the fun of a hangi. The rest is eating it.
KEY POINTS:
You need three things for a hangi - patience, hot stones and one person who knows what they're doing. If it's ages since you've eaten food cooked in the ground and you miss that pungent, earthy, smoky taste, make it your business to organise one.
If you have a big backyard, this is your opportunity to ruin it. If you don't wish to dig up the garden, there is a simpler way to make a hangi (see recipe) but here's how you do it for a hundred people.
The night before, big strong men - under the direction of John Panaho who runs indigenous Navigator Tours - dug a pit which was more or less square and about 30cm deep. The real experts, that is the girls sitting around drinking beer in the smokers' lounge (front garden), quietly tisk-tisked about the suspiciousness of the depth. Depth is the secret to everything, never mind a hangi.
Meanwhile, Moana's tribe sat around a table peeling mountains of spuds, kumara, pumpkin and onions and picking miniscule crumbs out of endless loaves of white bread.
A few hours into it I made the mistake of walking by with my gin and tonic. "Why don't you just get out the food processor?" They looked at me pityingly.
"You have missed the whole point. It's not about getting it done quickly - it's about talking and gossiping and being together."
Later on they added herbs and onions to the stuffing and inserted it into 3000 chooks and 2000 legs of lamb. At the crack of dawn I was awoken by that ancient Maori custom, the chainsaw massacre - Toby slicing logs of manuka to lay a solid frame on the pit. Intertwined in this tall raft of crossing wood was newspaper and brush with the cooking stones (preferably volcanic rocks or riverbed boulders) on top.
Everyone was stumbling around giggling and in various states of hangover. Astar was in the art department (backyard) gathering puka, reeds, flax, pohutukawa and silver fern for the table decoration.
At 7.30am the fire was lit and by 10.30am the stones were very hot. The banana leaf-lined wire baskets were filled with the food. Once the ashes had been cleared away and the hot stones were on the bottom of the pit, the baskets of food went on top, covered by wet sheets, wet sacking and lots of top soil. Four hours later it was a karakia from Michael and a smoky, delicious feast ensued.
Another, simpler way of cooking a smaller hangi is in a stand-up gas oven called a Multi Kai Cooker which uses manuka shavings to get the flavour. You can also make a mini hangi in your oven.
Apart from the obvious generosity of the hosts, the thing that stood out most about this particular hangi was the kindness and humour of the cuzzies who not only worked so hard but when turned around, put on their Sunday best and sang like nightingales.
OVEN HANGI
Serves 4
800g pork shoulder or fillet cut into large chunks
250g baby beetroot
250g baby turnips
250g baby carrots
Muslin cloth
String
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup rice or manuka shavings
1 cup topsoil
Tinfoil
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Wrap pork up in muslin cloth in two bundles and secure with string. Scrub vegetables and wrap in muslin cloth in two bundles.
2. Place a sheet of tinfoil in a baking tray. Mix together the sugar, rice and topsoil and sprinkle over the foil.
3. Place on a hot element until it starts smoking. Place bundles of meat and vegetables on top and cover tightly with tinfoil so no smoke escapes.
4. Place tray in the oven and cook for half an hour.
To Serve: remove the food from the bundles and place on a platter. Serve a watercress salad on the side.
- Detours, HoS
