Known for sharing her culinary adventures on social media, Raukura Huata reveals her kai picks for Christmas. As an uri of Ngāti Kahungunu, she says kaimoana is at the top of the list.
“Ko te kina te tuatahi me te whakamutunga. Ko te kina, ko te koura, ko te pāua. He kai Rangatira te pāua ki a mātou o Ngāti Kahungunu, nā reira ka tino whai wāhi mātou ki tēnā kai rangatira a mātou.”
Whakatō, hauhake
Celebrating her passion for kai for thousands to see online, Huata recently shared the vegetables she is growing, from lettuce and tomatoes to kamokamo.
Huawhenua is also something she enjoys this time of year and the harvesting of the kamokamo in her whānau garden will happen in preperation for Christmas hākari.
“Ko ngā kai o te whenua hoki, ko ngā kai o te māra, tae rawa atu ki ngā kai ka hauhake, te kamokamo.”
Kia māmā ake te whakarite hākari
Raukura also likes to adopt easier kai options for the Christmas hākari, sourcing food from her surroundings and experimenting with different techniques in traditional kai preparation. As much as she loves hāngī, she says the administrative preparations are stressful.
“I’m really keen and on doing things like barbecues and like other ways of playing around with smoke. Smoking fish, barbecuing, our meats are proteins. That’s actually where I’d shift my administration efforts just to like make things easier on the few of us that are actually in the kitchen cooking,” she said.
When asked about kai she avoids, Huata admits turkey isn’t on her Christmas table. She says she’s happy for people to eat what they enjoy, but for her, it’s a no.
Having just returned from Hawai’i in a food and culture exchange with Hawaiian chefs, Raukura says conversations with Kanaka Māoli were largely focused on food sovereignty, exploring ways to sustain both the land and the people for generations to come.
Kai motuhake
Conscious of the pressures whānau face in regard to the cost of living, Raukura says this is also a chance to reflect on food sovereignty and lean into tūpuna knowledge for growing kai.
“I really hope that our whānau are liberating ourselves from any of those kinds of expected pressures about kai that they should have on the table instead of what’s actually available and accessible to our whānau.”
“Hei aha te aro ki te tēpu o whānau kē atu, aro mai ki tō ake whānau, ki tō hapori.
