Local Dishes

1. hāngī

   Food steam-cooked in an earth oven

   Usage

   Two senses: the earth oven itself, which cooks with steam and heat from heated stones, and the food cooked in it. Pork, chicken, kūmara and pumpkin are lowered into the pit in baskets and steamed for several hours. It appears under this name on dinner menus at tourist venues; English signage often drops the macrons and writes "hangi"

   Grammar Note

   The word names both the oven and the meal cooked in it. The spelling hāngi is also used

2. rēwena

   Bread raised with potato yeast

   Usage

   Bread leavened with a potato ferment. It means both "bread made with potato yeast" and "yeast, leaven". Bakeries and markets sell it as "rēwena bread" or "rēwena parāoa"

   Grammar Note

   As a verb it means to ferment or make bread rise. Parāoa is "bread, flour", so "rēwena parāoa" is leavened bread

3. takakau

   Unleavened bread, scone

   Usage

   Bread made without yeast; the word also covers scone, flapjack and pancake. It contrasts with rēwena, which is raised with a ferment

   Grammar Note

   The same spelling is also a separate word meaning "unmarried, single" and the name of the sooty shearwater seabird, so read it in context

4. kai kōhua

   Boil-up (meat and greens simmered together)

   Usage

   The dish called "boil up": pork bones or similar simmered at length with pūhā, kūmara and potatoes. An everyday dish at home and on the marae

   Grammar Note

   Kōhua is a verb "to boil" and a noun "pot for boiling food", originally a vessel heated by dropping in hot stones

5. toroī

   Fermented pūhā and mussels

   Usage

   It means "fermented food, pickled pūhā and mussels": boiled greens and shellfish left to ferment, often served alongside a hāngī

   Grammar Note

   As a verb it means to ferment or brew. English-language signage sometimes drops the macron and writes "toroi"

6. kānga wai

   Fermented corn

   Usage

   "Fermented corn eaten as a delicacy". Cobs are steeped in water for weeks until strongly aromatic, then mashed into a porridge. Kānga kōpiro means the same

   Grammar Note

   Kānga is a loan from English "corn". Kānga pāhūhū is popcorn and kānga waru is grated corn.

7. kōura mara

   Crayfish fermented in fresh water

   Usage

   "crayfish fermented in fresh water" — a way of keeping the catch before refrigeration, preserved whole in its own fat

   Grammar Note

   Mara is a modifier, "fermented, prepared for eating by steeping in freshwater". With a macron, māra is "garden" — a different word, so keep the vowels straight

8. kaimoana

   Seafood

   Usage

   "seafood, shellfish". Used as a menu heading and on signs about shellfish gathering areas

9. kina

   Sea urchin (sea egg)

   Usage

   Its scientific name is Evechinus chloroticus. New Zealand English usually calls it "sea egg", and menus follow that. The shell is split and the roe eaten raw

   Grammar Note

   The roe itself has its own word, ateate

10. pāua

    Abalone

    Usage

    an edible univalve of rocky shores, abalone or sea ear. The largest species, Haliotis iris, has an iridescent shell. Most often served as pāua fritters

    Grammar Note

    English menus normally write "paua" without the macron. The same word also means a pāua-shell fishing lure and an animal's hoof

11. kūtai

    Mussel

    Usage

    "mussel of several species". This covers the farmed New Zealand green-lipped mussel, served steamed or as fritters

12. tio para

    Bluff oyster

    Usage

    Its scientific name is Tiostrea chilensis lutaria and it is most abundant in Foveaux Strait. English menus list it separately as "Bluff oyster"

    Grammar Note

    On its own, tio is the rock oyster (Saccostrea cucullata); a separate word with the same spelling means "ice, freezing cold"

13. kōura

    Rock lobster, crayfish

    Usage

    the salt-water crayfish or southern rock lobster, Jasus edwardsii. New Zealand English calls it "crayfish" or "cray". The same word covers the small freshwater species

    Grammar Note

    Loan words with the same spelling mean "gold (Au)" and "goal" in sport, so the sense shifts outside a menu

14. tuna

    Eel

    Usage

    ⚠ This is not the tuna fish. "eel of various species, including the longfin eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii) and shortfin eel (Anguilla australis)". Most often sold smoked

    Grammar Note

    The spelling coincides with English "tuna", so check which fish is meant. Tuna heke is a migrating eel

15. karengo

    Edible laver seaweed

    Usage

    southern laver, Porphyra columbina — an edible greenish-purple seaweed from upper intertidal rocks. It is dried for keeping, then soaked or simmered

    Grammar Note

    As a verb it means to be smooth or silky. A thick-leaved variety is tupata, and the variety reckoned tastiest is makawe

16. pūhā

    Sowthistle greens

    Usage

    sowthistle, Sonchus spp. — leafy plants with thistle-like leaves and milky juice, boiled as greens. It is the standard green in a boil-up, simmered with pork

    Grammar Note

    Without macrons, puha becomes different words — to spout or belch, fish gills, and a haka performed with long weapons. Keep the macrons

17. kūmara

    Sweet potato

    Usage

    sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas. New Zealand English uses the same word, "kumara". It is standard in a hāngī and appears on menus as kūmara chips or a side dish

    Grammar Note

    The storage pit is a kōpiha or rua kōpiha, and there are many named cultivars such as kaikākā

18. kamokamo

    Kamokamo squash

    Usage

    a stubby green vegetable marrow, Cucurbita spp., which when mature has a deeply ribbed, extremely hard yellowish skin — a favoured Māori food eaten young and immature. Sold at summer markets

    Grammar Note

    A separate word with the same spelling means "to blink frequently" and "eyelash". In the northern Ngāti Kahungunu area it is also called pāpapa

19. huhu

    Huhu grub

    Usage

    "huhu grub, Prionoplus reticularis — an edible grub found in decayed wood". Served at bush-food events and at restaurants featuring native ingredients

    Grammar Note

    The grub is also called tunga, tunga haere or tunga rākau; the adult beetle is tunga rere

20. pipi

    Pipi (bivalve)

    Usage

    an edible bivalve, Paphies australis, found just below the surface of sandy harbour flats at low tide. Its shell is smooth with a central hinge. Boiled or made into fritters

21. tuatua

    Tuatua (bivalve)

    Usage

    an edible bivalve, Paphies subtriangulata, buried in fine sand on open ocean beaches. It is told from pipi by its more sharply angled hinge

    Grammar Note

    The same spelling also carries the sense of a mountain ridge or main range

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