Food & Cuisine

Cooking and preparation techniques

In New Zealand they have many different cooking techniques.  To get the smoky flavor in their traditional Maori hangi they cook it in the ground.  They dig a deep hole, line the hole with red-hot stones and cover it with vegetation.  The food is then placed in the hole and then sprinkled with water and sealed with more vegetation.  The hole is then filled with earth and left to cook for several hours. 

Other preparation techniques preformed by the Maori people include roasting, and, in geothermal areas, boiling or steaming using natural hot springs and pools.  In non-geothermal areas food would be boiled by putting hot stones into a bowl of water and the food.  Some food was also cooked over the open fire.  They also preserved there food using smoke, air drying, or layers of fat.  Maori people were one of the few people who had no alcoholic beverages. 

In the United States the Native Americans utilized a number of cooking methods.  Grilling and spit roasting over the fire were common methods.  Many times they cooked their vegetables directly in the ashes of the fire. Due to the lack of pottery, the Native Americans  developed a technique called "Stone Boilers".  The American Indians would heat rocks directly in a fire and then add the bricks to a pot filled with water until it came to a boil so that it would cook the meat or vegetables in the boiling water.  This is very similar to the technique used by the Maori people. 

Another method of cooking was to use a empty bison stomach and fill it with desired ingredients and suspend it over the fire.  They also created ovens made of adobe called hornos.  These ovens were used to make breads from cornmeal.  The Native Americans also dug holes in the ground to cook similar to the way the Maori people would. 

I am very excited to try some of the food in Australia and New Zealand.  I am usually a very picky eater and I would like to try some unusual foods while we are there. I am interested to see how the food in New Zealand and Australia differs from the food in the US.  I want to see if the taste of the food is different or similar.  I am curious to see if I will like any of the food that they have there.  I am a little nervous that we will get some food that is really strange or is not something that we typically eat in the US.  But I am going to try to be open to new things on this trip! :)