A baked potato has got to be one of the easiest meals around. You wash it, prick it and throw it in the microwave for 3-4 minutes – voila! Or, slightly more complicated – you wrap it in tin foil and throw it in the oven at 200C (400F) for an hour. It’s simple, filling and nutritious so why haven’t I done it for years, I wondered?

“Let’s bake some potatoes tonight,” I suggested to my 8-year-old son this morning. He rolled his eyes in total disinterest and asked, “Why?” I switched into ‘enthusiastic mummy’ mode: “Because I want to teach you how to do it – it’s so easy – and then you can put baked beans or corn or cheese on top – it’s so delicious. I’m sure you would love it. It’s just like having cheese or baked beans on toast, except it’s a potato!” The sell job didn’t work and we ended up with grilled salmon and vegetable fried rice!

“That’s the reason!” I realised as we sat eating our dinner with a fork. This generation eats mostly fork food – meals that can be balanced on your knees in front of TV and eaten with one hand. A baked potato, on the other hand, needs a knife and fork – both hands and a good solid table.

Potatoes New Zealand believes that ‘if a child can bake a potato, they can make a meal’. So they are calling all grandparents to teach this simple skill to their grandchildren. I’m sure they won’t mind if parents take up the challenge too. There’s three days left of school holidays and I’m determined to bake a potato with my son. It can’t be that hard, can it!

Related:

The new hero food – potatoes

Found these digging around on the net … mostly from down under!

Glenn Cardwell: Getting kids to eat their veggies … Vegetables were probably never that big in the human diet. We evolved eating meat, seafood, nuts, seeds, fruits, tubers, fungi, berries and insects because that’s where the kilojoules are. When you need energy (kJs/Cals) each day to survive, why bother eating a leaf (lettuce), a flower (broccoli) or something else that is mainly water …

c: I don’t subscribe to the evolution theory, I’m more a creation girl – it makes me feel more special. And the people I have read about who lived 3-4000 years ago definitely knew their grandparents.  But I love the idea of talking positively to your children about vegetables! What about kids and meat?

Dieticians missed point on story: 60 Minutes – National – NZ Herald News … TV3′s 60 Minutes says criticism by nutrition experts on its report on the effects of food colouring on children was disappointing and failed to focus on the real issue – that Britain is phasing out some artificial colours while New Zealand is doing nothing….

c: Medical and other science experts such as dietitians get exasperated with some media reporters who either deliberately or out of ignorance use anecdoctal evidence or dubious ‘studies’ to sensationalise their story. Of course dietitians don’t condone artificial colours and, whether or not  they cause your kids to ‘lose the plot’, it would be good to see these unnecessary additives phased out.

Editorial: Don’t tinker with our daily bread – Health – NZ Herald News … It is not too difficult to see why many public health authorities support the mandatory fortifying of bread with folic acid. No one questions folate’s effectiveness in reducing the incidence of certain birth defects, notably spina bifida, if it is taken in sufficient quantity around the time a woman becomes pregnant …

c:Nice commentary but there are hints of negative effects on the US population -update today on kiwiblog and read my own folate posts.

Omega-3 deficiency causes 96,000 US deaths per year, say researchers … Omega-3 deficiency is the sixth biggest killer of Americans and more deadly than excess trans fat intake, according to a new study. The Harvard University researchers looked at 12 dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors such as tobacco smoking and high blood pressure and used a mathematical model to determine how many fatalities could have been prevented if better practices had been observed …

c: This is really interesting but keep in mind it’s an analysis of numbers – and we all know how they can be manipulated! Still, I’ll be sure to keep up my weekly salmon dinner and salmon sushi snacks – delicious.

A rural town in Australia has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact. … Campaigners say Bundanoon, in New South Wales, may be the first community in the world to have such a ban…

c: Good on them! Why pay for something you can get naturally. Bottled water has its place – it’s made it trendy to drink water – that’s got to be a good thing. But if you want to be even more ‘on trend’ and eco-friendly simply drink filtered tap water (see TIME mags megatrend on this).

Blood glucose control ranks high in US death causes

c: From the same mathematical analysis as the omega-3 story.  Blood glucose ranked 5th and omega-3 ranked 6th in preventable causes of death ie it doesn’t include accidents. I’m surprised at inactivity ranking 4th. I’d better go for that bike ride – even though it’s freezing cold outside and I’d rather sit inside and eat cake!

Price of milk too much for many families, study finds – Nutrition – NZ Herald News … Price increases for milk and other dairy products are having a detrimental effect on children’s health, University of Otago researchers say …

c: This means almost 2 out of 3 Kiwi kids don’t drink milk daily – that’s terrible! Instead of cereal with milk what are they eating for breakfast – toast and a can of fizzy? Perhaps we will have to re-introduce milk at schools. How about banana smoothies or Milo instead of sausage sizzles and lollies (see my article on toddlers healthy bones).

… Continued from part 1 &  part 2. (last of series).

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…

Rangiatea

“E kore au e ngaro

He kakano i ruia mai

i Rangiatea”

I will never be lost

The seed scattered across the Pacific

From my ancient home in Tahiti

(Old Maori saying)

…

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Postscript:

Funny how things come round again. I was recently (2004) in Te Kuiti at Oparure Marae where I met whanau who, a few weeks before came upon and unearthed an old kumara pit with its cache of perfectly preserved kumara, big and seed size. The find also disclosed that the families who lived on that site moved out in the early 1950s, and surmised that the abandoned kumara pit had remained untouched all that time. The tubers were covered in bracken fern and manuka brush and had remained untouched by moisture, sunlight or air. This information rang a bell for me. The next day, we shared our experiences with the students of the Raranga Diploma. The seeds were planted and germinated and I was handed a small collection to try out in my tiny Papakura garden. Yes, I still have seeds from that exchange.

Extraordinary!

… continued from part 1

Heaps, heaps and heaps of kumara. Over four days, Rimaha worked single-handedly digging up about a half-acre of kumara.

A warm cloudy day without direct sunlight was preferred for sorting the piles of kumara spread around the excavations.

And there she sat, sorting and singing and telling stories about the changing seasons and the times to plant and harvest, the nights of the seasons, and the season announced by the pipiwharauroa. No activity of this kind was done without consultation with the phases of the moon. The land and the plants were fondled as though they were children.

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Kumara

“E moko,

She said

“Come help me

Dig out our

Kumara”

Her wrinkled hands

Fondling

In the brown earth

Counting sorting

Kumara.

There she sat and smoked

One arm akimbo skirt tucked in

Gathering the first fruits

In the kits of Tane

Kumara.

“These we eat now

These for the tangi

These are seed …

And these, e Moko are your

Kumara

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Dug up, resigned now, kumara lay in heaps protected from the sun by their tendrils and bracken fern. I sat in the dust with Wairemana sorting and drying. She was selective about the weather because direct sunshine would blister the tender tubers. The kumara were separated into three separate heaps of large, medium, and the cut and small tubers. The damaged and the smallest were eaten immediately. No, you did not start by eating the big kumara straight away. They were set-aside for special occasions.

Wairemana showed me how to handle the kumara. I simply followed.

Ko tana ki au, “Me penei. Me penei, me pera. Kia ata haere. Kia ata ngawari to whawha i te kumara na te mea he tino ngaehe noa tona ahua. Kia tau tou rangimarie ki te kumara.”

“Be kind.” I didn’t understand.

I was shown how to carefully turn the tubers over, one by one so that any condensation on the underside would slowly seep away.

Instruction, when I need it, was never in the negative. “Me penei…” These had to be done at least three times to eliminate any residue before they were placed into large sacks for Rimaha to carry up a steep slope. This was necessary to ensure that when they were placed inside the kumara pit (rua kumara), moisture would not harm the rest of the cache.

The kumara pit was carefully planned and dug into the side of a steep slope on a site carefully selected for this purpose. The space was flattened out. Located some 200 yards up a steep slope, the pit was dug down into the clay soil some five feet deep tapering to the top opening and quite spacious at the bottom. The small opening at the top allowed access for a single person. For access, a short ladder made of a post with stepping notches was lowered into the pit. The inside of the pit was lined with bracken with an underlay of manuka brush to cushion the tubers but as well provided the necessary air conditions for their preservation. The lid covering the aperture at the top was made of two sheets of overlapping corrugated irons, which were also covered with layers of bracken and manuka brush. A shallow ditch was dug around the edges of the pit to drain away rainwater.

I helped Rimaha, where I could to carry the heavy sacks of kumara up the steep hill but it was my job to place each tuber individually and carefully one on top of the other. Yes, one by one.

When a cook up of kumara was needed, I was the one to go up the slippery slope, open the pit, fill a kit with kumara, close the pit up carefully, and come back down. Often I lost my footing and sent the kit with its contents scattered everywhere. I hated that job because most times it would be wet-cold.

I recall opening the pit and the outflow of air hitting my face – its acrid, dry smell, and the warmth which rushed out at me.

On the side of the steep hill, the pit faced the rising sun.

The design of the pit was an engineering feat, one which shows the design genius of our tipuna handed down over time. The inside of the pit, when fully closed up was airtight. This created a vacuum, which kept the precious tubers absolutely dry. Before the kumara were laid in their beds, a fire was lit inside the pit to kill off any fungal diseases, and the ashes became a part of the preservation. Then of course, there was the warmth in the ground captured in the pit when the sun came up over the ridge each morning.

The interior of the pit was also covered with layers of bracken. The pit sealed out the air, a way tested over a long time to ensure the preservation of the fragile tubers over winter.

Rimaha was a man of a few words, a very practical man, hard working, a striking figure anywhere.

“The big ones here and those smaller ones over to that side. These are the most important because they are next season’s seed,” he would say.

“That’s why we say the seeds are tapu. They need to be protected,” he emphasised.

And of course, the larger kumara were already tagged for the hui or tangi at the Roimata Marae, or simply to give away.

I watched. I listened and I followed.

Rimaha wasn’t so much into teaching, but rather he allowed me to see how it should be done correcting me only when it was necessary. A quiet man, a perfectionist, a man who watched that I followed instructions carefully. He watched over me as I placed the kumara tubers one layer upon another. When it came to the placement of the tubers, it had to be right or we could face long, tough winter months.

I often wondered in later years, when I had worked out the process used in the construction of the pit, how our tipuna knew about creating an airtight vacuum and using the warmth of the earth within the pit to preserve those precious tubers. Was it accidental? Serendipity? Did not the ancient Egyptians use the same principle in the crypts?

These are taonga in knowledge and skills handed down. Mai rano. He taonga tuku iho, as they say. The taonga of knowledge was safe with them and they passed it on to their moko pukenga to pass on.

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Part 3, the last of this series by Haare Williams, on my next post …