New Zealand Food Experiences You Can’t Replicate

“Known for its active volcanoes, Maori history and a landscape that swings between farmland, forest and foreshore, New Zealand’s North Island upholds its reputation for adventure. But look beyond Auckland’s restaurants and Wellington’s coffee culture and you’ll find edible experiences you just can’t come close to having anywhere else in the world,” Sofia Levin writes for digital magazine Good Food.

“The Hangi Shop was set up 18 years ago by Catherine Lim,” Levin writes. “With a Chinese father and a mother who’s Maori, English and Indian, Lim grew up on different cuisines at the dinner table, but hangi meals were reserved for special occasions. Lim and her brother used to sell hangi packs at the Manurewa markets while their mother was at church. Her brother opened a hangi shop in 1997, and after the real estate office where she worked closed down, she opened another to pass onto her kids.

“Lim uses special steamers in place of the traditional pit to keep up with demand and better control the cooking. For her, it’s more picking the right produce, something she learned growing up on a farm – it’s this freshness that’s missing from more tourist-oriented hangi experiences.

“‘This is who I am, that’s why I’ve been going so long,’ Lim says. ‘There’s a market out here for this, but it’s so important to be who you are, and to pass that onto your kids.'”

Levin also recommends the Evening Banquet Tour at Hobbiton in Matamata, a hangi pie at the Tamaki Maori Village café, and foraging around Lake Rotoma with chef Charles Royal on a Maori food trail.

Original article by Sofia Levin, Good Food, January 25, 2018.