“Who’s making the gravy? Someone needs to start the gravy,” Manea Tainui calls across the busy kitchen bench at Ōnuku Marae.

It’s not yet Christmas Day but it may as well be for all the excited clamouring, as three Tainui sisters – Rei, Ngaire and Manea – rush to have a traditional Christmas dinner on the table by 12.30pm for six hungry Ōnuku kaumātua.

“This is when ‘keeping it easy’ is a real benefit,” says Rei.

“As long as you’re organised well ahead of time, Christmas Day in the marae kitchen doesn’t have to be an ordeal. We’ve learned to keep things as simple as possible. Christmas is about whānau and friends, about getting together with loved ones you may not have seen for months, or years; so we try to avoid hassles in the kitchen,” she says.

The four Tainui sisters (including Pip) have had plenty of practice in the marae kitchen. Manea has been the cook at Ōnuku Marae for over 14 years and together, as Iwi Cuisine, the sisters have catered for numerous functions, including last year’s Ōnuku Marae Christmas dinner for 60. Like other marae in the Ngāi Tahu rohe, Ōnuku also hires its facilities to local whānau for private Christmas functions.

“We’ve always had a strong Christmas tradition in the Tainui family,” says Manea. “We’ve all had such big families we’ve usually celebrated in our own homes; but for many, the marae is the heart of the community, and whānau from overseas especially love coming back here.”

Manea says the annual Christmas hāngi on the marae isn’t as common as it was 20 years ago, but a kitchen-based marae Christmas can be a wonderful alternative.

“So many of our families are spread all around the world now – all four of Rei’s children live overseas for instance – so they don’t always get home; and a hāngi takes a lot of time. I know Bruce Rhodes, who is on the executive committee of the Ōnuku Rūnanga, always does a Christmas Day hāngi for his family. He does it all himself – three or four meats with all the vegetables for dozens of people.

“It’s great for families to get together at Christmas and coming back to the marae and to our homemade food is what everyone loves. We make everything ourselves. We don’t buy Christmas puddings or pavlovas – we make all our own, from scratch, using as many home-grown ingredients as we can. That’s what’s important to us.”

The sisters all agree that while Christmas is traditionally a time for feasting, it doesn’t have to be unhealthy. They place a big emphasis on fresh, home-grown ingredients and easy, tasty recipes that they hope will inspire the wider whānau to switch to healthier diets.

For today’s dinner, slow-roasted organic lamb from Wairewa-owned Pūtahi Farm is the focal point. Raised and harvested on organic land owned by the hapū and marketed through the new Ngāī Tahu food initiative Authentic Ngāi Tahu Fare (www.authenticindigenousfoods.co.nz), it will be served with crispy baked root vegetables and fresh salads. Wairewa whitebait will be used for the entrée of mini whitebait fritters with citrus mayonnaise. For dessert, Manea is making her tried-and-true steamed Christmas pudding served with custard, fresh blueberry and raspberry jellies and individual glasses of traditional sherry trifle.

“As well as the lamb, we’ve used pumpkin and fresh eggs from Pūtahi Farm. We always try to use vegetables and herbs from the garden and lemons from our trees. In fact, we’re now planning to start up our own marae garden here, so we’ll have ready access to everything we need when we’re cooking. We all enjoy cooking with fresh ingredients – they taste better, they’re healthier and it cuts costs,” says Manea.

As Rei and Manea put the finishing touches to the dinner, Ngaire prepares a Christmas table and welcomes the kaumātua – the sisters’ mother Bernice Tainui (Ngāi Tahu), Nancy Robinson (Ngāi Tahu), Wi and George Tainui (both Ngāi Tahu), Polly Rhodes (Tainui) and Milly Robinson (Ngāti Kahungunu). They’re all happy about an early Christmas dinner and eager to share their own memories.

Polly Rhodes talks about the love and joy of Christmas, the pleasure of making trifles, jellies, pavlovas and hāngi steamed pudding, and her husband Bruce’s big hāngi for up to 40 people.

“Our whānau couldn’t do without Christmas. It’s one of our most special occasions. It brings us all together with our tamariki and our mokopuna. They all call the marae home and Christmas here holds us all together,” she says.

For Bernice Tainui, a marae Christmas doesn’t happen often enough. “There’s nothing like a marae Christmas. Nothing beats it,” she says.

“It’s especially good when someone else cooks the Christmas pudding – especially when it’s your whānau … They learned that from their tāua here at Ōnuku. She was a beautiful cook.”

 

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