Skip to main content

Hangi-Over

Hangi-Over
Unearthing lunch from the garden

The hangi's finished. Out of the ground and into our stomachs. The kids and I attended our first backyard hangi yesterday. A hangi is a traditional Maori (native New Zealand peoples) way of cooking food. Dig a hole in the ground, throw down rocks and light a fire. In a metal basket, add chicken, pork, lamb and beef, plus pumpkin, kumura (sweet potato) and potato wrapped in aluminum (which is pronounced "al-yoo-MIN-ee-um") foil. Cover with sheets, blankets, burlap. Shovel dirt back over your feast, and let it cook 4 hours.
Imagine visiting your neighbor for a meal. The neighbor says, "Dinner's in the backyard. Come watch me dig it up." That's exactly what this hangi looked like. Among the rows of lettuce, celery and whatever else was growing in the garden, sat a mound of dirt. And under that mound – lunch for 2 dozen people. It's one thing to don mitts and remove a roast from the oven – quite another to grab a shovel and excavate your food. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%81ngi

The taste of food cooked in a hangi is smoky and tender, often flavored with wood such as manuka or tea tree. Knowing it cooked underground makes it taste that much better.
Hangi's are so much a part of NZ culture, organizations sell individually wrapped hangi meals as fundraisers. Groups deliver the meals to offices. Beats the board shorts off a ham sandwich (called a "sammy" here). 

Before serving the hangi, the chef, Mike, blessed the meal in Maori. I've heard these prayers several times, and while I can't understand the words, they sound beautiful.
Yesterday's event was held in celebration of a wedding at the business of friends of friends. The venue was a combination funeral/wedding chapel. "How appropriate," I thought. "First comes marriage, and then, not long after, the funeral." Ouch. That sounds cynical. Let's reframe, and call both occasions – weddings and funerals – part of the circle of life.
And if you're putting down a hangi, remember to call me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remove Before Flight

Remove Before Flight “The elevator’s trim, rudder’s trim, mixture’s rich, flaps are at ten degrees…” Pete, the PAHT-nah (partner), is talking through a pre-flight checklist as we wait to taxi from the Tauranga airport. In the nearly 12 months we’ve known each other, Pete’s talked about taking me flying. Now, with my departure from New Zealand less than ten days away, the weather, schedules, and aircraft maintenance have obliged so Pete can fulfill his promise. The sky is overcast, but the cloud ceiling will allow us to fly at 2,500 feet; it’s the weekend, so we’re not competing with flight school students for air time; and there’s a new-ish plane (called FCO, or Foxtrot Charlie Oscar) Pete has enough confidence in to haul what he calls “precious cargo,” which is me. Pete checks the Cessna 152 single-engine propeller aircraft as I watch. He walks the plane’s perimeter, inspecting flaps, wheels, the rudder… He gives me a couple wooden door-stopper-looking blocks (called chocks). “Remo...
4 comments
Read more

Murder House

Murder House (MUH-dah House) The deed is done              “I don’t wanna go to the dentist. It’s gonna hurt,” says Fiona. I can hardly deny my eight-year-old the truth, but I can tiptoe around it.             “They’re going to rub medicine on your gums to numb them,” I tell her. “And they can put your tooth to sleep with a needle.”             Fiona gasps, “I don’t want a needle! No!” Oops. I shouldn’t have used the “n” word. Fiona starts her high-pitched screeching if she thinks a needle exists in the next room. When I got the kids immunized in preparation for dragging them round-the-world, Fiona cried as the nurse swabbed her upper arm with iodine. You would’ve thought someone was whacking off her limb with a rusty saw, yet the needle lay feet from Fiona’s body. New Zealand is not the place for dental work for a ...
9 comments
Read more

The Affair

The Affair Ohope Beach, NZ I had an affair last week. I’m not ashamed to tell you, either. It was sweet and sad. It made me laugh, cry, sigh and dance in my chair to James Brown and Rupert Holmes. My Kiwi PAHT-nah, Pete, even facilitated the tryst, though neither of us knew what to expect beforehand. Pete watched the kids while I was gone for five nights. Five whole nights.  No kids. No TV. No partner.  I enjoyed a dalliance with my late husband, Sean (though I should write instead, ‘dead husband,’ because Sean hated being late). It happened in a wood-paneled house across the street from the ocean, in Ohope Beach, New Zealand. I attended a writer’s retreat to work on the memoir. I revised six sections totaling more than 40,000 words. In the course of revising- subtracting old text and adding entries from letters Sean had written me when we first started dating, plus journal entries he wrote around the time Fiona was born - I fell in love again. With Sea...
2 comments
Read more