With the release of a reo Māori version of the ubiquitous Edmonds My First Cookbook, Taku Puka Tohutao Tuatahi, what else is there to do but test it out?
It may be a children’s cookbook, but Taku Puka Tohutao Tuatahi proved it’s also a valuable resource for adult learners of te reo Maori.
It’s a familiar kaupapa for James Dansey (Ngāruahine, Te Arawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) and me – we’ve been taking an intermediate te reo Māori immersion course at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa this year.
Taku Puka Tohutao Tuatahi is full of illustrated instructions for classics like banana bread and Anzac biscuits, but also serves up seven new recipes: frybread, star biscuits, mussel fritters, boilup, raw fish, sapasui, and bread and butter pudding.
Translated by Dr Jen Martin and overseen by reo Māori expert Pānia Papa, the cookbook is the 11th book published under the Kotahi Rau Pukapuka Trust, which aims to produce 100 books in te reo Māori.
While our vocabulary kete (basket) is modest, my hoa ako (student friend) and I attempted to follow the boilup recipe while interacting entirely in te reo Māori. The experience brought forth fond memories of kai kōhua.
For Dansey, it’s his dad and whānau gatherings. He described it as “te rongo o te whānau”.
“Mum would make boilup for dad for his birthday or just out of the blue as a treat,” he says.
“He’s of the generation where it was deemed better for him not to learn the reo to survive more easily in te ao Pākehā.
“But things like a love of boilup, his friendship group consisting mainly of cousins and spreading the korowai of whanaunga – his ambulance driver mahi and going to every single family funeral – those things I like to see as tūpuna ways of being, slip through.”
For me, boilup reminds me of the times my grandparents would pull over to the side of the road while running errands and returning to the car with armfuls of foraged watercress.
Later in the day, the sweet aroma of pork bone in watercress soup (sai yeung choy tong) would waft through the house. It wasn’t anything special at the time. It was just domestically ordinary, and over time it’s represented home and ease without me realising.
And the experience of cooking only with te reo Māori was sweet and grounding like the kai kōhua itself.
Our kaiako (teachers) have instilled a sense of haumaru (safety) and māia (courage) with giving things a go. We are good at making mistakes and being creative with the way we express things when we don’t have all the words.
“It was just one recipe and I understood like three words,” says Dansey. “I love being brought so hard down to earth by a simple recipe.”
Dansey began his reo haerenga (journey) in 2017, shortly after his daughter was born. It’s been a lifelong desire, but also a desire riddled with whakamā (shame) and anger.
He says learning reo is like being a pēpi again. “My 43-year-old brain feels like a lost cause a bunch of the time.
Reframing thought processes
“Before starting the haerenga, I could only frame my feelings within these ideas and spaces in Western terms and concepts like anxiety,” he says.
“Now I’m beginning to reframe my thought processes in terms of mātauranga, aroha, whānaunga [knowledge, love and family] – often the lack thereof in certain spaces and times.
“An amazing kaiako from a kura reo at my marae said he’s always seen the reo as rongoā [a tonic], and that’s how I’m starting to experience it.
“The voice speaking Māori in my head sounds like my voice, and it practises saying kind things,” says Dansey. “It’s so different from the voices that took seed and grew within me before.”
“I’m still finding te ao Māori spaces for my life. They’re growing.”
Dansey references his home, Te Aka Pukaea, Te Whānau Awahou at Newton Central School and at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa as places that recentre his feeling of tūrangawaewae.
He looks towards passing these things to his eight-year-old daughter, Awhi, who is growing up around flourishing reo.
Sharing our first time making boilup brought about bigger-picture kōrero and living memories of whānau, while grounding it in laughter and joy. It’s perhaps one of the strongest tools in this haerenga of finding whakapapa and voice.