New Zealand Kai (Food)

Daddy’s tagine

Greeting loyal readers and fellow maremmas. Now, as you all know Me and Nellie are rather fond of food.  So are mummy and daddy.  Daddy likes to cook all kind of exotic tasty food using recipes from all over the world.  Curries and dishes using his tagine,  are favourites.  Me and Nellie do not care what daddy cooks as long as We get some.

One traditional method of cooking  all New Zealanders experience, mostly at school and later on in life, is the Maori method of cooking called hangi.  Mummy likes hangi food and was very excited to learn that at a recent wedding they were invited to that the reception dinner would be cooked using a hangi.

From our friend Wikipedia:

Hāngi (Māori pronunciation: [ˈhaːŋi]) is a traditional New Zealand Maori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven still used for special occasions.

To “lay a hāngi” or “put down a hāngi” involves digging a pit in the ground, heating stones in the pit with a large fire, placing baskets of food on top of the stones, and covering everything with earth for several hours before uncovering (or lifting) the hāngi.

Nowadays a pit is no longer dug, rather in the early 21st century, gas heated stainless steel “hāngi machines” are sometimes used to replicate the style of cooking without the need for a wood fire, rocks and a pit.

This was the method of cooking used at the wedding.

 

Lots of kai

Traditional hangi food are potatoes, kumera, pumpkin, cabbage, mutton and pork.

Unfortunately, Bashful was not able to join mummy and daddy at the wedding.  Mummy says she was concerned that she might not be able to keep Bashful from partying too hard, so she thought it prudent to keep him home, looking after Me and Nellie.

To stop Bashful for getting too homesick, mummy found this at the local, Australian owned supermarket called Countdown.

Dinner tomorrow night

FYI, tonight’s dinner is curry with lots of carbohydrates (rice and potatoes) because sister is running a half marathon tomorrow.

Love Nellie and Jasper, the two bestes maremms in the land.