The Kiwi dish that every visitor to NZ needs to experience

4 hours ago 4

Ben Groundwater

The dish: Hangi, New Zealand

Plate up

A hangi is simply meat and vegetables. It’s the way it’s cooked that matters.Alamy

The hangi is New Zealand’s national dish, and every single visitor to the country should experience one. These are the words of Ben Bayly, one of New Zealand’s best-known chefs, a restaurateur and former judge on My Kitchen Rules. He’s passionate about many things, but most of all the hangi, the traditional Maori style of cookery that has become an ingrained part of modern Kiwi culture. A hangi is a method of cooking – meat and vegetables are packed in wire baskets and buried under hot rocks in a ground oven, left to steam over several hours – but it’s also a social occasion, much like the Aussie barbecue.

Meat and vegetables are packed in wire baskets and buried under hot rocks.Getty Images

Hangis take a long time to cook, which means a long time hanging around with family and friends, catching up on news and discussing the All Blacks’ latest obliteration of their hapless opponents. It’s vital to New Zealand’s social fabric, and yes, well worth experiencing as a visitor.

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First serve

The history of hangi is the history of Maori in New Zealand.Alamy

The history of the hangi is as old as the history of the Maori in New Zealand. There’s evidence around Marlborough, and also on the Otago Peninsula – early Polynesian settler sites, going back to the 13th century – of umu, or large cooking pits that are typically used for a hangi. Before Europeans arrived, meat and vegetables were packed into bark and large leaves before being buried under hot rocks and soil. Post-colonisation, wire baskets topped with canvas sacking became the norm, though now you can even buy “hangi cookers”, which are metal, gas-fired cylinders used to replicate the cooking conditions of a ground oven without the need to dig a huge hole in your yard.

Order there

In Rotorua, a key centre for Māori culture, experience a hangi – and many other traditions – at Te Puia (tepuia.com).

Order here

In Sydney, pick up your cook-at-home hangi pack from The Kai Drop in St Marys (facebook.com/TheKaiDrop). In Melbourne, follow the Hangi Boys (hangiboys.com.au) to see where they’ll do a pop-up hangi next. In Brisbane, call in to The Cuzzy’s in Zillmere (facebook.com/thecuzzyscafe).

One more thing

Though the hangi style of ground-oven cookery is often associated with Polynesian culture, there’s evidence that Indigenous Australian groups were using this method of preparation as far back as 12,000 years ago.

Ben Groundwater is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years’ experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it – and at any given moment in time Ben is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwaterConnect via email.