Corny Stuff

My favourite vegetable is corn; I could eat it till the cows come home. I love it cooked and eaten right off the cob, I love it popped and I love it done in the old fashioned maori tradition, as kaanga wai. “This literally translates as ‘corn water’, but means a water cured corn dish.

Maori food has its roots in our tradition and culture, also out of necessity; making use of foods readily available, in season or finding ways of preserving them for future use. ‘Kaanga wai’ certainly comes under the latter; it is also known as ‘rotten corn’.

It has a very strong and unpleasant smell to it, which if you can get passed (and most non Maori can’t) that it is not a totally unpleasant flavour. (Infact it’s utterly delicious!). It has in common with the exotic Durian fruit a sad reputation for smelling like a public toilet but in all honesty it’s like a decadent creamed corn so don’t let the smell or description put you off!

Originally the shelled white corn was placed in flour sacks and tied to stakes in running streams, but these days it is more often than not just placed into a drum of water and the water changed daily, for two months. By then the corn is really soft and mushy (not to mention smelling very ripe!) This is then cleaned, mashed or minced.

Two parts corn to 6 parts water is then simmered on the stove until a porridge type consistency is produced (best done outdoors or with the windows open very wide!) This is then served with cream and sugar added to taste.”

I remember when I was growing up I loved the fact that other kids couldn’t get past the smell. Kaanga wai is “old” food, the kind that my father’s generation ate when they were growing up. I ate it knowing I was ‘touching’ their generation in this small but not insignificant way. And I marvel still that so few others of my generation realised that. Ka pai eh!