Fry bread is kai that connects Māori to people around the world
Something lots of indigenous cultures have in common? Oil, flour, salt and yeast.
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend. I’ve decided that I need an April cooking project so I do not devolve into eating toast for dinner for the rest of the month. I found a cookbook someone was giving away at the side of the road last year, a compendium of recipes from across the (then) USSR, so I’m using my platform here to publicly commit to trying one each week for the rest of the month. Quince pilaf? Treacle in bread? Apricot and lentil soup? Let’s see how it goes, but if this weekend’s edition is anything to go by, I might be hunting down some fried bread first.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
Fry bread’s global history, from Native America to Aotearoa
“Made with the flour, yeast and salt that arrived with Europeans, fry bread is a more recent Māori staple that feels like it’s been around for ever. It’s served at hui, tangi and festivals, and what makes it so irresistible is that it’s deep fried. Warm and salty, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, fry bread is the same golden colour and shape as a chicken nugget, but the size of your fist.” Vanessa Ellingham’s description of fry bread (and its’ many cousins around the globe) is compelling. She meditates on how this staple is connected to histories of colonisation and how it fits into the bigger picture of nutrition needs, indigenous dispossession and hungry people in difficult places desperate for something to eat. It’s a beautiful story that is part of our growing archive of pieces from our What’s Eating Aotearoa project.
Join The Spinoff members, now with comments
Spinoff members are now able to comment on certain stories. It’s another way for us to bring to life the value of belonging to the community of Spinoff supporters. I explain why we’re doing this here, and if I ever publish another big food ranking, you have my permission to give me your worst. It’s just one of the perks of being a Spinoff supporter.
Today you can also chime in on:
A ranking of Paul Jennings original book covers by body horror
A review of the ‘enraging drama’ Mr Bates vs. The Post Office
Log in, let us know what you think, and as always, we’d be grateful if you’d consider becoming a Spinoff supporter if you’re not already.
See you in the comments,
– Madeleine Chapman, editor
Paul Jennings’s book covers, ranked by body horror
Remember The Day My Bum Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths? Remember Morris Gleitzman’s book about the journey of a germ living in a nose? Remember Paul Jennings incredibly bizarre and scary children’s stories? Staff writer Alex Casey has ranked the original covers of Paul Jenning’s short story collections and it has me remembering all the wild and wacky Australian children’s books of my youth. “Whether it was a skeleton on the dunny, a cursed shrunken mouth or a tiny face on tonsils, Jennings’ penchant for body horror, shocking twists and generally freaking kids out was unparalleled. While the stories themselves are just as rich in Final Destination vibes as you remember…the brilliant cover art also helped a lot to establish Jennings’ uncanny universe, and sear haunting images into the minds of an entire generation of readers,” she writes. Read the whole ranking, and get just a little bit freaked out, here.
A dream of Auckland in 2074
Tommy de Silva is dreaming of a better Auckland - one with light rail, and sparkling clean harbours, and always-nearby e-bikes. He catapults himself half a century into the future and imagines a day in 2074 with his hypothetical grandaughter Moera, accompanied by lovely paintings from Christopher Dews. Here’s an excerpt. “I tell my AI assistant to check which grandkid wants to be lectured today, and my granddaughter Moeroa responds. Our first stop will be Te Manukanuka o Hoturoa (Te Manuka for short), known in my youth incorrectly as the Manukau Harbour, our once polluted but now replenished ancestral moana and source of mauri for our Waiohua iwi. To get there, we’ll use Dominion Road’s light rail, part of what is now a fully-fledged light rail network spanning Māngere to Silverdale.”
10 takeaways for Auckland from a week in Austin
What does privacy look like in the internet age? Personal privacy has become a more complex topic than ever before since the internet became a mainstay of our lives. The University of Auckland Business School's Gehan Gunasekara has spent his career trying to define privacy in this fast-changing world.Read more about his studies into the new age of privacy on The Spinoff now, in partnership with the University of Auckland Business School.
How vape retailers outrun regulation
Two excellent pieces of reporting about vape regulations from Stewart-Sowman Lund this week. He told me: “I was drawn to this topic because there are two distinct sides to it. Young people addicted to a product they shouldn’t be, and businesses wanting to continue selling a product they have been legally able to sell. I was particularly fascinated by the way vape retailers seem to constantly be outmanoeuvring the government when it comes to regulation – for example, vape retailers opening up as separate businesses inside dairies. It’s somehow both genius and terrifying.” He talks to politicians and documents how easily vape retailers circumvent regulations — like selling ‘reusable’ vapes at the exact same price point as disposable devices and running sales on banned flavours after a law change.
Every politician needs a hobby
Mad Chapman had the delightful experience of watching minister for arts and culture Paul Goldsmith play piano in Auckland a few weeks ago. He looked like he was enjoying it. It made her think about how important it is for politicians to have interests outside of work. “When your work is to make decisions that impact hundreds of thousands of people who you’ll never meet, it can be easy to slip into the “game” of decision-making and of only thinking about the world in the macro. And when everything is about semantics and getting that advantage over your opposition – while at the same time being most often about people’s livelihood – it becomes increasingly easy for regular people to disengage and view politicians as inhuman…There are some skills that can only be learned in a non-work environment.”
A tour of Parliament’s library featuring ghosts, gargoyles and a mystery box
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Everything else
Follow Luxon’s lead: make an action plan for your own life!
At the meditation class (?) with Rachel Hunter (??) in a Christchurch school hall (???) Alex Casey reports.
“Should I leave my life of glamorous shoes to live in France to study mime?” Help me, Hera!
We Are The World was incredibly popular. But why are we still so limited by imagining Africa as a place of suffering?
Why there are so many more apple varieties than there used to be - and what happened to old favourites like Golden Delicious.
A bunch of reckons on Beyonce’s new album Cowboy Carter.
Gabi Lardies puts statistics about landlords losing money to unpaid rent in context. Related: does a new renting expansion of the Sims encourage everyone to think like a landlord?
How to be a godsend to a new parent.
Sam Bankman-Fried has just been sentenced. What are the deadly limitations of the philosophy of effective altruism he supported?
DNA tests are revealing that incest is more common than people previously thought.
Finally, in this week’s instalment of The Cost of Being, a librarian talks us through her costs, and why she’s willing to spend lots of money on tramping boots and nice olive oil. Want to anonymously contribute and break down the stigma about money? Send us an email at costofbeing@thespinoff.co.nz
