Blog Eleven; Cooking and Preparation

In the U.S. it's easy to put a slab of meat or some vegetables onto a grill or hot skillet over a stove to cook it to our satisfaction. Things are a little different in New Zealand. They take their cooking and preparation techniques to the extreme. They use their culture based ways to make their food. Often used for special occasions, the traditional Maori hangi is a special way of preparing food in New Zealand.  Men dig a deep hole in the earth and line it with hot stones and vegetation. The desired food is placed on the top to cook, then the "oven" is sprinkled with water and covered in more vegetation before being covered in the earth. The food cooks underground for a few hours and gains a smokey flavor. In other Pacific languages this was known as umu. Another traditional way to cook food is by packing the nutrition in leaves and placing it on top of stones heated by fire. These "packs" are then covered with more vegetation, foliage, and cloth (nowadays they're covered in wet sacks), then earth. Some similar cooking methods to ours are roasting their food, and boiling or steaming it (of course, they do this in the geothermal hot springs rather than just any hot water). They also put hot stones in a bowl of water and food, or simply by being cooked over an open fire. The Maori have multiple native ways to prepare their food, rather than Americans, who are limited to grills and ovens.

I really am excited to try some of the native foods from New Zealand and Australia. They have food that I've never even heard of before! I want to experience these new flavors and try new things on our trip. But I am slightly nervous that a lot of the food will be meat or meat flavored, as they eat a lot of meat in New Zealand. That may be a slight struggle, but I'm sure I can push through it and find some new native treats without having to consume any meat. You know what they say in Japan (so, we're not going to Japan...but Japan/New Zealand...close enough); every time you try a new food, it adds ten years to your life. Well if that's the case, I plan on living an extra hundred years or so.