A Christmas trip to Portugal to take his father-in-law Antonio Carreira home for the first time in 38 years couldn’t stop the Hāngi Master Rewi Spraggon from cooking traditional Kiwi kai for his Portuguese whānau.
And as well as writing about the history and some of the secrets of a delicious hāngi, the celebrated chef is also currently working on adding his iconic flavours to a popular gourmet burger chain, on to naval ships and also into supermarkets.
“I cooked a hāngi for all his whānau,” Spraggon told the Herald.
“This is the first time he has been home to his little seaside village of Lavos in Figueira da Foz.
“His whānau heard that I cook hāngi for a living, so I decided to make a hāngi for about 60.
“This was a true experience for them of Aotearoa’s soul food.”
The hāngi consisted of rabbit soaked overnight in red wine with onions and fresh herbs, duck soaked in a clemintime mandarin with local beer, pork and chicken soaked in a saltwater brine that the village is famous for - there are 300 salt farms in the area - alongside the traditional kumara, potato, pumpkin, cabbage stuffing and burnt sugar steam pudding.
He said Carreira emigrated to New Zealand in 1998 and had planned a short stay. But he met Spraggon’s Rarotongan mother-in-law and set up home in New Zealand.
Spraggon said putting down a hāngi in Portugal was also a new experience for him.
“I have done hāngi in in Las Vegas, Hawaii, Japan, Canada, Los Angeles, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Adelaide and now Portugal,” he said.
“I have started writing my hāngi book (Aotearoa’s Soul Food Hāngi) that will be out in Matariki and part of the book is taking hāngi to the world.
“This will be the first book on hāngi that gives an in-depth history and whakapapa of hangi along with stories from all over Aotearoa.”
Spraggon also has a few other initiatives for 2026.
“I’m working with Burger Fuel to put hāngi on the menu and will have hāngi meals in supermarkets this year,” he said.
“I’m also working with the NZ Defence Force to have my hāngi on the Navy ships as well so the crew can have hāngi available for them when they are overseas to remind them of home and give them a bit of our comfort food - just like the Māori Battalion soldiers did in Europe in World War II in Italy and Egypt for their Christmas meal.
“Some of these stories I’ll share in my book that will be published by Harper Colins.”
Spraggon was one of many foodie heroes during New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdowns.
It saw him and his son give out thousands of hāngi to the homeless and food banks.
“A lot of them usually eat in the back of restaurants, in the rubbish cans behind the restaurants. But with no restaurants open, there’s no food, so there’s a huge struggle,” he told the Herald in September, 2021.
“What drives me is just... humanity. And, you know, with my 9-year-old and 12-year-old, it does my head in trying to teach them with their online schooling. They’re helping me pack food. ‘Okay, we’re doing another math lesson - count those potatoes, count the kūmara!’
- NZ Herald
