Phillip Kraal's Lamb Shanks in Orange and Sage Sauce

I’ve just spent the weekend in Napier, about four hours’ drive from my Wellington home. Napier is one of New Zealand more interesting cities architecturally. It was struck by a severe earthquake in 1931 – magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale. That, plus subsequent fires, left the commercial heart of the town in ruins. The neighbouring city of Hastings, 20 kilometres to the south, suffered a similar fate.

They were rebuilt in the styles of the period: Stripped Classical, Spanish mission and Art Deco. With the more recent nostalgia boom, the region has capitalised on its wonderful Deco architecture and this has helped the local tourist industry immensely (for a tour, visit http://www.hb.co.nz/artdeco/intro.htm).

But people don’t visit Hawke’s Bay for the architecture alone. Napier and Hastings are at the heart of a wonderful wine region. And in recent years to local restaurant industry has burgeoned.

I went up with a friend to watch a former work colleague’s husband installed as the Bishop of Waiapu. It was certainly a very colourful ceremony with quite a sense of theatre about it.

Afterwards many of us visited a local Maori marae for the traditional “afternoon tea”.

A marae is a meeting place for the local Maori people and there are many of them throughout the country, some small, some large. Each features a beautifully decorated meeting house and it is the land in front of this meeting house that is actually the “marae”. As well, there is a whare kai, whare meaning house and kai meaning food.

There was a welcoming ceremony for the newly ordained bishop and we other manuhiri or visitors. Marae protocol is a fascinating subject in itself and you can learn more at http://www.maoritreasures.com/konae_aron...

Anyone who has visited a marae will know Maori don’t just offer a cup of tea! The tangata whenua or local people had laid out a banquet for their visitors – pork, fish, potatoes, kumara (yams), pumpkin and other vegetables. There was puha (sow thistle, something like spinach and a rich source or iron), marinated raw fish, chunks of eel with crispy skin and delicious flesh, rewena or Maori bread, paua (a sort of abalone) very finely minced in a thick white sauce with a hint of onion. Dessert included ginger steamed pudding with custard and fruit. And there were cups of tea, lots of cups of tea.

The lasting thing that stays with you after sharing a meal on the marae is that the Maori definitely know all about comfort food. They are experts as hospitality. I overheard one of them say to another after we had finished “My puku is tight.” Puku is stomach and I think we could all echo that!

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