Hangi, the Earth Oven

A hangi is food cooked in the ground. Stones are heated in a fire until they glow, dropped into a pit, and wire baskets of meat and vegetables are stacked on top, covered with wet sacking and leaves, then buried under earth and left three or four hours while the steam works through. What comes out is soft, smoky and plain in a way that suits feeding a hundred people at once: pork, lamb or chicken, kumara, potato, pumpkin and stuffing. It is cooked for the occasions that matter, tangihanga, weddings and big family gatherings, and in Rotorua some households still cook in geothermal steam instead of digging a pit at all.

What you actually see

• The lifting - the moment the earth and sacking come off and the steam goes up.
• Kumara and pork - the plain, smoky staples that make up most of the basket.
• Rotorua steam cooking - boxes and boiling pools used for cooking where the ground runs hot.
• The shared table - the point of the whole thing, which is feeding a crowd at once.

When to go

Commercial cultural evenings in Rotorua serve a hangi most nights, year-round, and book out over summer. A marae hangi comes through invitation or an organised marae stay rather than a booking site. Matariki in June and July brings public hangi in some towns, occasionally free. Winter is arguably its season, given what comes out of the ground.

Honest expectations

Most tourist hangi are cooked in above-ground steam boxes rather than a pit, which is honest enough but not the same thing. The food is soft, mild and buffet-scale, and people expecting bold flavour are often underwhelmed. Vegetarians get thin pickings. A real pit hangi takes most of a day and many hands, which is why you rarely see one on a schedule.

Nearby

Rotorua's geothermal ground and cultural centres are the easiest place to encounter it.