CELEBRATING KIWI KAI

Matariki is the perfect time to enjoy the star ingredients of Aotearoa

At around this time of year, the reappearance of the cluster of stars known as Matariki signals the beginning of the Maori New Year. In the legends of Matariki, the central star Matariki is the whaea (mother), surrounded by her six daughters, Tupua-nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Waipunarangi, Ururangi and the twins Waiti and Waita.

There are many stories about these stars and their significance. One legend links four of the stars to food.

Tupu-a-rangi is associated with food that comes from trees, such as fruits, berries and birds. Waiti is connected to all the food collected from lakes and rivers, and her twin Waita is connected to food gathered from the oceans and the seashore. Tupu-a-nuku connects to food grown in the earth.

The time of Matariki has always been about coming together, sharing knowledge and ideas, and giving thanks for recent harvests with feasts and celebrations. The concept of manaakitanga, or the art of welcoming and sharing, is central to Matariki celebrations.

Monique Fiso’s exciting new restaurant in Wellington, Hiakai, is a showcase of Maori cooking techniques and ingredients and embraces the spirit of manaakitanga.

Fiso’s sophisticated culinary skills bring ingredients that were once widely used in Maori cooking to the table in contemporary ways.

The restaurant is a warm, welcoming space and the staff are eloquent in their explanations of these unfamiliar ingredients and the way they have been treated.

I enjoyed an exceptional dinner at Hiakai recently and got to experience first-hand Fiso’s innovative expressions of traditional ingredients, and the welcoming embrace of manaakitanga.

On Fiso’s menu, smoked harakeke seeds are used as a coating for smoked chocolate truffles, kawakawa leaf oil (transformed using liquid nitrogen) is served in a sauce with tarakihi, and traditional kaanga wai (a fermented corn porridge that smells like vomit and tastes like a nutty, sweet gorgonzola cheese), is partnered with tender confit pork belly.

Kiokio is used to infuse a porcini-like flavour into stocks, and the jellied texture of mamaku is brought to the fore in one of the restaurant’s signature petit fours, the Mamaku Pate de Fruit.

Fiso describes kumara as “without a doubt Aotearoa’s most recognised and beloved vegetable”. Certainly it was the most important crop cultivated by early Maori. Their tropical origin meant that most of the kumara brought out by Maori voyagers in the 13th century were difficult to grow except in the far north of the North Island. Because of this, kumara-growing, even more perhaps than fishing, was a sacred undertaking, involving many solemn rituals.

The Maori proverb “He kai kei aku ringa” translates as “There is food at the end of my hands”. Whether it’s a shared winter picnic with a flask of soup, a casual drinks party, or a full-on feast, Matariki is the chance to come together and celebrate Aotearoa and the amazing ingredients we have at our fingertips.