The koroua was probably born in the 1830s when the custom was still practiced.Īll these sources captured evidence of kaitangata, some far more horrific, if judged from today’s perspective, than anything I have described in the novel.įor young men as we were, the products of Māori boarding schools, used to seeing and assisting in farm kills, it was not with revulsion that we received these accounts, but rather with an acceptance that they were part of our past culture, before our ancestors had turned to Christianity, and we made no judgments of them. While sorting the tongues of the kina the koroua directed him to separate out the redder looking ones and to leave them for those who had tasted human flesh. One knowledgeable elder once told us about a bed-ridden old man or koroua, who in the elder’s youth had asked him to fetch some kina (sea eggs) from the sea.
Such relics and their associated korero made the past far closer than we realised. In one unused paddock, lies an enormous disc-shaped rock named ‘umu-tangata’ (earth oven of people) which we were warned away from, because human flesh had been often cut up on it.
We were shown places on our rural landscape named ‘Umu-a-so-and-so’, which meant ‘where so-and-so was cooked’. Our elders, some of whom were veterans of the 28th Māori Battalion, spoke to us knowing that we had been raised in the same cultural value system as they, and that they had a cultural obligation to teach us our history without cherry-picking, for what they carried were the last vestiges of our connection to the Hawaiki homeland. They captured statements by exemplars of the culture, many of whom were in their 70s and 80s.Īt the time, I was also part of a group privy to the oral traditions of our people. These had been scribed in the last three decades of the 19th century. In my early adult life, I had a research job which required me to read volumes of evidence recorded in the original minute books of the Native Land Court. I have a research background that spans almost 40 years, in which time I have had access to closely guarded tribal and family manuscripts. Why did I include kaitangata in the novel? Because it was what it was. Yes, the novel is based on many true stories, but it’s still a work of fiction. But while Kāwai does not shy away from difficult history, I must remind the reader that this scene is taken from a novel. It doesn’t necessarily convey deeper Māori understandings of the term. To ignore it in the novel would be to be unfaithful to what I know about this period.Ĭannibalism has its own life in the historiography which emanates from Europe. My new novel Kāwai portrays Maori society in the 1700s and kaitangata - referred to as cannibalism in ethnographic literature - was very much a part of that society. Mark then looks at various ways to preserve herbs including making oils, drying, vinegars, syrups and freezing, before offering over 100 innovative recipes that make the most of your new herb knowledge.A Māori scholar touches on "a difficult history"
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With a guide to sowing, planting, feeding and propagating herbs, there are also full plant descriptions and their main culinary affinities. The recipes build on bringing your herbs alive - whether that’s a quickly swizzed parsley pesto when short of time on a weekday evening, or in wrapping a crumbly Lancashire cheese in lovage for a few weeks to infuse it with bitter earthiness. The reader will become familiar with the differences in flavour intensity, provenance, nutritional benefits and more.įocusing on the familiars including thyme, rosemary, basil, chives and bay, Herb will also open the door to a few lesser-known flavours.
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The book will explore how to use herbs, when to deploy them, and how to capture those flavours to use when they might not be seasonally available. Mark shares the techniques at the heart of sourcing, preparing and using herbs well, enabling you to make delicious food that is as rewarding in the process as it is in the end result. Packed with ideas for enjoying and using herbs, Herb is much more than a recipe book. Herb is a plot-to-plate exploration of herbs that majors on the kitchen, with just enough of the simple art of growing to allow the reader to welcome a wealth of home-grown flavours into their kitchen.Īuthor Mark Diacono is a gardener as well as a cook.
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