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"Maori material culture has evolved over two main periods of Polynesian settlement. The first is known as the Archaic or Moa Hunter period during which the Polynesians made their first contact with the moa...a large struthious bird which supplied them with abundant food...The Polynesians utilised the moa for food while from its bones they manufactured ornaments, fish hooks, bird spear points, and other items...The earliest c.14 carbon dating for the settlement of man in New Zealand is approximately 1,000 years ago...The first requirements of a primitive people landing in a new country are comparatively simple and in this order: food, clothing, and shelter. In New Zealand food would be immediately available and abundant...From evidence it would appear that as the first abundance of moa gradually declined in given places, the settlers then entered upon a more varied programme of fishing, fowling, and the collection of molluscs, etc. Gradually permanent or semi-permanent villages were established... The last great phase in the introduction of new culture evidence were the adventurous voyages southward...about A.D. 1350. This settlement ushered in the Classic period of Maori culture...Agriculture gradually developed...It is likely that the coming of the "Fleet" ushred in a new era by the introduction of food plants. These were the kumara...the taro...the uhi or yham...and the hue or gourd....Most esteemed was the kumara which once grew as far sought as Kaiapoi in the South Island. Cultivated foods came under the rulership of the god Rongo whos emblem was placed in fields with the growing crops...Digging sticks (ko), spades (kaheru), and weeders (ketu) were the main tools used in cultivating the ground...The forest and its product were tapu to the god Tane. This tapu was rigorously imposed."
---Encyclopedia of New Zealand, A.H. McLintock, editor [R.E. Own, Government Printer:Wellington] volume 2, 1966 (p. 439-440)

About early Maori foods and hunting techniques

"Forest birds were taken according to season and under the direction of a tohunga who conducted all operations. Most esteemed were large wood pigeons...To assist in the general operations, it was often customary for all to take annual tribal expeditions to the forest or its neighbourhood. The work was well organized. Experts attended to the snares while others kept troughs supplied with water. Birds were collected, plucked, and deboned after which they were cooked before a fire... the prepared birds bing spitted on straight rods. A wooden trough received the fat from the cooking birds. Cooked birds were preserved in their own fat, usually in gourd containers...and these were stored in the village pataka. Three main ground birds were the weka, the kiwi, and the kakapo...Line fishing was the favourite method of taking fish; and a large number of hooks and even fishing lines have been preserved in museums. Dried dogfish were much esteemd as well as other small species of shark and skate...Most specialised of trolling hooks was the pa kahawai, consisting of a slightly curved wooden shank, on the inner surface of which was inlaid a section of the shell of the paua. A bone hook with an inner barb was attached below and incurved. When polished, the paua takes on a remarkable lustre which attracts surface fish. The line works on a reciprocal fashion, winding itself up to the limit and unwinding in regular fashion. New Zealand rivers are remarkable for their large eels...Smaller seasonal fishes were much esteemed...whitebait...and grayling...But eels were a main and never-failing source of food and were muc in demand, being preserved by sun drying for future consumption. In larger rivers lampreys...were common, and special traps were set at weirs to take the lampreys when they ascended the rivers to spawn...Under natural conditons forest foods available were roots, togh, shoots, and leaves of selected trees. Fruit and berries were also eaten in season. Most important of the foods were the rhizomes of the bracken fern. Special preserves of fern, some more highly sesteemed than others, were carfully conserved by all tribes. Bundles of rhizomes were collected and thoroughly pounded with a wooden pounder (patu aruhe) on a stone base. The starchy material thus separated was made into cakes which were cooked in hot ashes. Fern rhizome was also cleaned and chewed raw by commoners and slaves."
---ibid (p. 440-441)

Maori kitchens & cooking

"Kitchens were for the most part primitive structures barely adequate to keep out the rain, though in large communities log houses were built, the logs being usually of mamku..while in others logs were placed horizontally and used as required for fuel. Less consideration was accorded to cooks than those concerned with the preparation of food than to any other section of the community. Ad food destroyed the tapu of man, kitchens were establishsed well away from the houses of chiefs. All food was consumed outside dwellings in the open air. It was usual to have two meals per day, the main meal being in the evening. In the ditchen was the earth oven, or umu, also known as hingi, a pit some 3 to 4 ft in diameter and up to 18 in. deep. Quantites of wood, large and small, were piled in the pit, and selected oven stones..were spread over the wood. As the wood burnt, the stones became heated and gradually sank into the oven cavity. Embers were raked aside and the stones levelled out, some being put aside for placing on top of the food when it was arranged in the pit. The pit was liberally soused with water; quantiites of green stuff were placed over the stones, and then food such as kumara and fish, and greens such as sow thistle, were arranged in alternate layers. The hot stones set aside were then placed on top. Again liberal quantities of water were used, and a mat to cover all. On this the earth was piled. Food was ready in one and a half hours."
---ibid (p. 442)

Native foods of the Maori

Kumara (sweet potato), taro and yam, hue (gourds), aruhe (fernroot), raupo (bullrush), hinau, karaka, tawa, tutu, other berries (mataik totara, kahikatera, rimu), ti (cabbage tree), mamaku (tree fern), nikau palm, puha (sow thistle), poikpiko (fern buds), kowhitiwhiti (watercress), orchids, fungus (haswai, wairuru, tiki-tehetehe, maiheru, tawaka, hakeka), seaweed, chewing gum (puha mostly), birds (pigeon, tui, bellbird, kaka (parrot), kakariki (parakeet), weka, pukeko, duck--never huia or kinfisher), rats, dogs, insects & lizards, mango marokie (dried shark),tuna, koura (crayfish), shellfish (kina poha, kina kotero, paua tahu, kotoretore (sea anemone jelly), and (sometimes) cannibalism. Bread (wheat gained popularity mid 19th century forwards): paroaoa parai (fried bread), cured corn.
---Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Food and Cookery, David Burton [Reed:Wellington] 1982 (p. 3-15)
[NOTE: This book contains notes on specific Maori foods, cooking methods and storage techniques. Your local public librarian can help you find a copy.]

About Maori food preservation
The Maori peoples of New Zealand stored their foods in patakas, purposely constructed to thwart carnivorous/rodent preditors and encourage safe storage. Maoris preserved their foods by drying, smoking, and salting.

"Food was stored in a pataka, a small house standing on a high platform out of the way of dogs and rats. The food...had to be constantly rearranged for better ventilation; dried fish, in particular, quickly became mouldy in damp weather. Apart from kumara, which usually had to be kept in the rua or storage pit, the pataka was used to store all the food which would be needed to eke out the meagre supplies which would be harvested over the lean winter months. In drier eastern districts, especially of the South Island, a simple platform was built on one or two stout poles and the food was covered with rough, water-shedding mats. Food shortages were most commonly experienced in early spring, especially when feasting had emptied the pataka and stormy weather prevented fishing expeditions. The bird-hunting season was from autumn to early winter, but often the birds were potted for distribution as prestige gifts. In such times of want, the Maori would drink vast quantities of water and refrain from hard physical labour. The normal two meals per day would be reduced to just one, perhaps consisting of the old standby, fernroot. There are even recorded instances of a type of clay being eaten as a last resort. But there were also times of plenty, and occasions such ccas a tangi-hango (funeral) or the reconciliation of differences with another tribe were traditional times for feasting. Preparations were elaborate. New ground was planted with kumara, and birds, rats, and fish were taken and dried. Efforts were always made to include large amounts of such meat delicacies for the sake of visitors. Sometimes the event was planned on such a large scale that initial preparations were begun more than a year before the feast was to take place."
---Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Food and Cookery, David Burton [Reed:Wellington] 1982 (p. 3)

"The Maori soon discovered that the smoking process used for preserving fish and other meats...worked well for the introduced trout. Because a hot smoke is used, the fish is partly smoked and is thus usually eaten raw on thin slices of bread, perhaps garnished with a little chopped raw onion, parsley and lemon juice. Dried trout. Remove head, entrails and backbone and lay the trout out flat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and hang on a line to dry in the sun for 12 hours."
---ibid (p. 15)

"The principal development in horticulture was not the introduction of the kumara...but the elaboration of storage techniques, particularly the sunken 'cellars' and underground pits which are such a feature of the archaeolgical landscape. In the tropical Pacific the kumara is the perennial plant which can be propogated by the direct transferral of growing vines. It is highly suseptible to frost. The first Polynesian settlers, in adapting it to New Zealand conditions, aimed one of the greater agricultural achievements of Oceania. They discovered that, by lifting the crop in autumn and storing it in pits under relatively constant humidity and temperature, tubers could be retained for winter consumption and also as seed tubers for planting out the following spring. Only a few shallow pits were found in the Palliser Bay settlements, and most of the crop may have been stored in baskets in houses. Large storage pits were probably developed further north and their use then spread gradually throughout the horticultural region. A distinctive regional variant known as the raised-rim pit, found in eastern regions from the Bay of Plenty to the southern limits of horticulture in Canterbury, reached Palliser Bay at a much later date."
---Oxford History of New Zealand, Geoffrey W. Rice, editor [Oxford University Press:Aukland] 1992, 2nd edition (p. 21-2)

Descriptions were obtained from Maori elders knowledgeable in traditional methods for the processing of Tiroi (mussels and Puha), Kina (sea urchins), Kanga Kopiro (fermented maize) and Titi (muttonbird). Information for a number of variations of each method was transformed into process flow charts, and these charts were analysed using a HACCP-based approach. Two of the processes (Kanga Kopiro and Titi) were found to be likely to produce safe foods as Kanga Kopiro undergoes an acid fermentation and Titi preparation involves significant cooking steps. However, the information regarding Tiroi and Kina processing did not supply the necessary data to identify definitely whether fermentations were involved, and if they were, what kind they may be. New Zealand has only experienced one outbreak of botulism, and this was associated with the consumption of Tiroi. It is, therefore, desirable to identify the processes occurring in these foods where the nature of these processes is not understood in order to facilitate their safe future production.
---"Traditional Maori food preparation methods and food safety," Whyte R, Hudson JA, Hasell S , Gray M, O'Reilly R Food Safety Programme, ESR Ltd, Imam, Christchurch, New Zealand, Int J Food Microbiol. 2001 Sep 28;69(3):183-90.

"Writer William Kelly recorded signs of gold madness when he reached Melbourne in 1853. With farm labourers deserting their plots and extra mouths to feed, common cabbages could command 2s 6d each and eggs 18 shillings a dozen, he said. For a 'sooty' lump of meat and a cold potato, some 'gritty' bread and a glass of 'saccharine' ale, he paid an eating-house 8s 6d. Yet at a performance of 'Hamlet', gold-diggers in the audience barracked grave-diggers onstage about the depth of their sinking, popped champagne during the interval and pelted nuggets at the curtain calls, A land sale outside Melbourne was enlivened by a brass band and each bid was toasted in champagne...With the goldrush, merchants enjoyed great prosperity. On the diggings, Kelly found an excellent supper of 'the beef and mutton of Victoria, the brad of South Australia, the butter of ould Erin, the coffee of Ceylon, the sugar of Mauritius, the tea of China--while the ham of York, the marmalade of Scotland, the sardines of France, the condiments of India, were only waiting for a beckon to jump down our throughts from the surrounding shelves.' Back in Melbourne, he noted the arrival of Yankee clippers loaded with consumer goods. He wandered the wharves, 'speculating on the possible uses to which many strange and fantastic articles could be applied.' Then probably included the new range of American agricultural and kitchen equipment, which, like many American schemes and influences, followed the gold rush seekers from the Californian fields."
---One Continuous Picnic: A History of eating in Australia, Michael Symons [Penguin Books:Victoria] 1982 (p.60-61)

"Early in 1852 it was South Australia's turn to suffer. Men left their homes and businesses in droves. However, this was not entirely bad. It may have stimulated the gold-rush, but it also stimulated the wheat growers of South Australia; the price they could get for their wheat was astronomical. All supplies were hard to find and expensive. In June 1851 the price of flour suddenly doubled in Melbourne. In 1852 fresh milk was considered a luxury. By 1853 the land under cultivation had dropped by forty per cent. With new towns appearing overnight, there was hardly time to establish any sense of order. Before leaving the cities gold seekers would stock up with flour, tea, sugar, cooking equipment (such as frying pans, iron pots, tin plates and pannikins), tents, firearms, camp-ovens, blankets, carts and horses, picks, shovels and axes. The inns situated on the gold-rush routes offered dreary fare--mostly cold meat and damper. If the gold-seekers were lucky they could buy supplies from farms along the way, but food was dear [expensive]. A dozen eggs, for instance, could sometimes be as much as a guinea, or as little as 4s. 0d. Little coffee tents and sly grog houses were set up along the routes...Once at the diggings it was common for many to exist on the bushman's diet of mutton (sometimes beef or veal), damper and black tea three times a day. This was by no means cheap and could cost as much as 5s 0d. per meal. On Sundays plum diff was the big treat. Fruit and vegetables were a rarity. Some miner shot local game such as pigeon, plover, quail, lyre birds, kangaroos,emus, platypus, and kookaburras to vary their diet. Parrots and cockatoos were roasted or made into soup--very fashionable at this time and evidently delicious. At Ballarat in 1853, docks were boiled and eaten as a substitute for vegetables, and when Tasmanian apples were in season they became as precious as the gold-dust which everyone was chasing...A typical store on a gold site was a large tent into which everything was flung in one great heap; shopping was chaotic. In the heap there would be the finest chunteys form India, pickled salmon, ham, sugar-candy, herrings, sardines....ales, cheese, pork, currants...bread....sugar and potted anchovies. ut, a man had to have money...Meat was usually sold in large quantities; half a sheep cost about 8s. 0d, flour was 1s. 0d, per pound and sugar 1s 6d. Tea was 3s. 6d. per pound."
---The Captain Cook Book: Two Hundred Years of Australian Cooking, Babette Hayes [Thomas Nelson:Melbourne] 1970 (p. 91-93)

"Back in Melbourne, [William Kelly] noted the arrival of Yankee clippers loaded with consumer goods. He wandered the warves, "speculating on the possible uses to which many strange and fantastic articles could be applied". They probably included a new range of American agricultural and kitchen equipment, which, like many American schemes and influences, followed the gold seekers from the California fields. Australian food, produced by an industry spanning nations, was already shaped by American influences. Among the imports were New England champagne...Soft drinks, which were really flavoured soda water, and been invented a few years earlier in Philadelphia, and so this "champagne" presumably also had it sparkles added. Another imported American luxury of the 1850s was ice..."
---(p. 60-61)

"The 1920s saw increased American influence on food. In 1920, a Leeton Cannery official, John Brady, toured the US and returned with the idea of the Murrumbridgee Irrigation Area rice industry. A Californian...opened the Golden Gate Sundae Shop...The first of the big American food companies moved in. Philip K. Wrigley, the founder's son from Chicago, had set up chewing gum operations back in the war. Life Savers, the candies invented in Cleveland, Ohio in 1913 and successful with the wartime blockade of German mints, arrived in 1921...Destined to dominate our eating and drinking, the first giant food corporations came to the fore in the 1920s. The main names were: Kellogg's and Kraft (from the US)...With hindsight, we can see that these corporations pushed early "convenience" foods, most simply defined as those needing no cooking outside the factory."
---(p. 129)

"With the Pacific war, Australia was mobilised as a giant US base...U.S. troops were "ambassadors" for Aemricanfood and manners, leaving a taste fo cocktails and Coca-Cola...we grabbed hamburgers at every corner."
---(p. 162)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help you find a copy.]

"The first Maltese and Italians went to Queensland in the 1870s and 1880s where they worked as labourers. The money was good: about 8s. Od. Per day compared with 1s. 3d., which was the average daily wage back in their homeland. They cut cane and grew tobacco and fruit. The Italian community in Griffith, New South Wales, can take most of the credit for setting up and running the fruit-growing industry there. The Italians were encourage to live in Queensland because of the need for cheap labour, and, since they were hard working, thrifty and willing to operate on a share basis with one or two others, they were soon buying small areas of land. Most of the immigrnats had been farming small plots of land in their home country so it was natural that they should continue to do this. They were also willing to take on heavier debts than many Australian farmers cared to risk. In the 1929 depression many Australian cane growers were forced to leave the land. The Italians took advantage of this and bought themselves precious plots with their hard-earned savings. Life for the early Italians was lonely. They came here without wives and children and then, once they were established, sent for their brides or families. Strangely enough, their ties with Italy were not as strong as their ties with particular regions. They though of themselves as Piedmontese, Lombardians, Sicilians, or Venetians. If they married in Australia, they tended to marry someone who came from their one region in Italy...Italian was spoken in the home and only Italian food was prepared...In the cities they...opened delicatessens and restaurants, thus providing variety for the Australian gourmet. This was particularly so after World War II, which created a special hardship for Italian Australians. The men were interned, although it is doubtful whether many had any political feelings about Fascist Italy."
---The Captain Cook Book: Two Hundred Years of Australian Cooking, Babette Hayes [Thomas Nelson:Sydney] 1970 (p. 136-7)

"Most early Italian arrivals worked in primary industries such as fishing and farming although a few were involved in manufacturing foods such as macaroni. The first Italians to enter Australia in any number (we are talking here of hundreds rather than thousands) came in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, mainly as agricultural labourers on sugar-cane farms in the tropical heat of Queensland. Mass migration began in 1920, and following the World War II they represented the biggest non-English speaking migrant group. Because of their numbers, the richness of their culinary heritage and its adaptability to manufacturing, Italians have had an enormous effect on the way we eat, greater indeed than any other migrant group of the post-war period. During the 1960s and 70s many Italian food products became widely available, including cheese like parmesan, pecorino, provolone, mozzarella and ricotta, Italian salamis and prosciutto, a great range of pasta shapes, olive oil, black olives, tomato paste, tinned tomatoes, giardiniera pickles, gelato, cappuccino and espresso coffee...A significant impact has been in the fruit and vegetable trade with Italian greengrocers setting a standard of quality and freshness as well as introducing previously little known varieties such as zucchini, broccoli, globe artichokes, fennel, eggplant, radicchio, different types of lettuces and capsicums, chillies, fresh chestnuts and flat-leaved parsley. One of the most famous greengrocers was Giuseppe De Luca, who arrived from Boston in 1886 and opened a shop on King Street Sydney which specialized in fruit, wines and confectionery. In 1916 the business was take over by the Donato brothers who brought in presentation fruit baskets and fruit salad renowned with lunchtime office workers."
---How to Cook a Galah, Laurel Evelyn Dyson [Thomas C. Lothian Pty:South Melbourne] 2002 (p. 146-7)