What's Wrong With Our Maori Foods? He aha te he o nga kai Maori?

Te Ao Hou, March 1964, Page 5

What's Wrong With Our Maori Foods? He aha te he o nga kai Maori? by Riki Erihi Open in a book before me there is a beautiful coloured advertisement for a well-known New Zealand firm's brand of frozen corn. It is a delightful picture, and it makes me long for a cob of hot buttered corn. Try as I may, whenever I have a meal of corn now it does not taste anything like the ones we had when I was small. Is it because in those days, my people were struggling to establish themselves on their newly acquired Maori Affairs farm? We appreciated what little we had, for it was achieved through hours of long laborious toil, with back aches and heart aches by the dozen. Nowadays I have acquired a taste for oriental, mostly Chinese cooking. I have learnt to appreciate continental-style foods, and the sharp flavoursome tang of garlic; in fact, garlic and green ginger are now included in practically everything I eat. But every now and then, I long for a Maori meal, or the nearest thing to it. This brings to me a question: why do we not have more well-known national dishes? It is certainly not for the lack of good cooks. Why, then? Do we as a race lack imagination? Hardly, but the fact remains that if we are to create a national dish, we must make better use of our native foods.