The past few years have seen Māori cuisine getting more of the attention it deserves, and this year's Matariki festival is the perfect time to get out there and get a taste of some excellent kai, with a series of food-focused events taking place around the city.
WAI.TAI and Kaiat the Maritime Museum boasts a performance of Māori world music, directed by Robyn Kamira, with kai served up by the food truck Puha & Pakeha. Matariki Wild Thing Kai Time is a neat way to get the tamariki thinking about the taiao (natural environment) and its role as a source of food and materials. Kids will spend a day learning to identify and forage for native plants then cook them up into a feast, learning flax weaving along the way.
The Gourmet Hāngī Series sounds like it will be an absolute hit. I spoke to Rewi Spraggon (Ngati Hine, Te Kawerau A Maki), the hāngī master you might know from Māori Television's hit series Hāngī Pit Masters (Wednesdays 7.30pm) about his role collaborating with four chefs and restaurateurs from Tāmaki Makaurau to host a series of hāngī with native and global influences. There's Sergio Maglione at Farina, Ganesh Raj from The Tasting Shed, The Grounds' Ben Bayly and Baduzzi's Juan Balsani.
Traditional kai with a twist will be enjoyed in Matariki celebrations.
Spraggon has tempting insight into what's on the menus. "We've got tītī (muttonbird) pate we're aiming to get to a foie gras-like texture, duck, octopus, taro with coconut ice cream, a pumpkin steamed pudding, and a nod to Sergio's Italian background with a gnocchi for Farina." The hāngī at The Ground will be dug on-site while the hāngī cooking for the other three events will take place at Rewi's home site in Te Henga then be prepped to serve at the restaurants.
Spraggon is a traditionalist in that he strongly believes a true hāngī is in the earth, with a proper fire - the kind that takes several hours to set up and several more to cook. Spraggon uses hāngī stones that go back generations, passed down from his mum's father to Spraggon's Pākehā father, who had learned in depth about hāngī and passed on the knowledge to his son. Both men have now passed on, but, says Spraggon "I know they're with me when I'm cooking with these stones". Yet, he is open to marrying hāngī with other cooking techniques. For example for the pork belly burger Rewi's Hāngī Master food truck serves, the pork belly is first cooked in the hāngī, cooled, frozen, then finally charred on the grill to serve in a ciabatta bun with hangi-cooked kūmara mash, granny smith apple and Korean-style spicy sauce.
What Spraggon is most excited about is seeing the look on guests' faces when they taste the kai. "Any chef anywhere around the world will tell you that to see that expression of happiness on people's faces is what it's all about. That and telling the story of our food, which is something we're getting better at in New Zealand now. We'll be talking to people all throughout the events."
Te Korakora on Federal, Matariki Festival. Photo / Monster Valley
"Hāngī is our soul food. It's the oldest dish we have that comes from New Zealand so if we're looking for what New Zealand cuisine is, this is it. Back in the 1980s, everyone did hāngī, it didn't matter if you were Māori or Pākehā, putting down a hāngī was what we did. But we lost it." And when a hāngī does take place these days, it's often not in a traditional earth oven.
"Even in a lot of these big, rural marae they are using big steam cookers, says Spraggon, who reckons there's dual elements at play - we're time-poor and the old-school skills have been lost.
Yet, for this pit-master, time is what you make it. Although he has been cooking hāngī for decades, it was just last November that he set up the Hāngī Master business and focused on this slow way of cooking. The business has exploded since, with the TV show Hāngī Pit Masters being the highest rating on Māori Television.
Spraggon has been the subject of several film crews visiting from overseas, having cooked 107 hāngī just since the start of this year, and being asked to cater for cruise ships coming into port in Auckland. "They asked me if I could cook for 3000 people at a time and I just said yes ... Then I went off and thought what the hell am I doing?" he laughs. But he's made it work.
He's found a way to slow-cook, in the ground, the way of his ancestors, for that many people. This Auckland hāngī master has found a way to harness time and make that unmistakable flavour of true hāngī part of our city's culinary lexicon once again.
