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26 July 2010
I found this fascinating article recently in the NZ gardener May 2000 about Tipene Manthera, written by Diana Madgin. This article inspired me to find, cook and taste the fleshy shoots of our native cabbage tree, Cordyline australis. Cabbages have always been one of my favourite veggies, in a coleslaw, a stir-fry or steamed with butter and a pinch of pepper, and is chock full of vitamins.
Tipene was from the Tuhoe Maori Tribe, and was raised in Matahi near Opotiki in the North Island of New Zealand. For his first 10 years, ‘the terrible years’ as Tipene calls them, his life consisted of hard endless work, harvesting seeds for the communities’ own crops to use as a bartering currency. Cocksfoot, ryegrass, clover seed, potatoes and maize were harvested and stored, but kumara to cook in the hangi had to be bought (bartered for) in Opotiki.
In 1952 Tipene came south to Christchurch with his new is wife. She was from the Ngai Tahu Maori tribe who live in the South Island. Tipene couldn’t speak English and his wife could not speak Maori. He was culture shocked living in Christchurch, and ready to go home to Matahi, but 27 years and eleven children later he was still there. In his retirement he went back to his ‘gardening roots’.
While tidying up his grandchild’s kohanga reo (Maori kindergarten) he finally plucked up courage to plant something… His childhood was spent harvesting, he had never planted anything in his life. Tipene planted a row of young cabbage trees (Cordyline australis) along the back fence.
The stem and new shoots of the Cordyline were once a much prized sweet food, especially in the South Island, and Tipene decided to revive the practice in his family. To force the young plant to sprout he tied the top leaves together in a pony-tail. When the new shoots appear, this fleshy growing shoot is snapped off the top of the cabbage tree. The tough outer leaves were peeled away to reveal a solid wad of starchy flesh.
In the old days the Cordyline growing shoots were slowly baked in the hangi, but Tipene simmered them in a pot for the same effect before serving them. ‘It’s a very easily absorbed form of glucose’ he explained.
The next year Tipene also grew cabbages, far too many he thought. Luckily his 70th birthday came up, and hundreds of guests ate most of the cabbages! Tipene was asked whether all his family eat from the garden now. Tipene shook his head and said: ‘You wouldn’t believe it but when I look in their shopping baskets, they’re buying cabbages! We need our young people to use their own backyards to grow their food again’
Background information on Cordyline australis (Native Cabbage Tree)
Cordyline australis was collected in 1769 by naturalists on the Endeavour, Captain Cook’s boat, on his first voyage to the Pacific.It was first named Dracaena australis, and is still sometimes sold as such. The common name Cabbage Tree is attributed by some sources to early settlers having used the young leaves as a substitute for cabbage.
In traditional times, Maori had a rich knowledge of the cabbage tree, but while much of that specialised knowledge was lost after the European settlement of New Zealand, the use of the tree as food and medicine has persisted, and the use of its fibres for weaving is becoming more common.
The stems and fleshy rhizomes of Cordyline australis are high in natural sugars and were steam-cooked in hangis (ovens in the ground) to produce kauri, a carbohydrate-rich food used to sweeten other foods. The growing tips or leaf hearts were stripped of leaves and eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable, when they were called kuaka—the origin of the Maori name of the tree.
Large groups of women trimmed the cut stems, and left them to dry for days or weeks. As well as stems, the rhizomes (extensions of the trunk below the surface of the ground shaped like enormous carrots) were also dug up to be cooked. They dug them in spring or early summer just before the flowering of the plant, when they were at their sweetest. November was the favourite month for preparing kauri in the South Island.
After drying, the harvested stems or rhizomes of the Cordyline were steamed for 24 hours or more in the hangi pit. Steaming converted the carbohydrate fructan in the stems to very sweet fructose. The cooked stems or rhizomes were then ?attened by beating and carried back to villages for storage. Kauri could be stored dry until the time came to add it to fern root and other foods to improve their palatability. The sugar in the stems or rhizomes would be partially crystallised, and could be found mixed in a sugary pulp with other matter between the fibres of the root, which were easily separated by tearing them apart. Kauri could also be dipped in water and chewed, and was said to smell and taste like molasses.
The koata, the growing tip of the plant, was eaten raw as medicine. When cooked, it was called the Kuaka. If the spike of unopened leaves and a few outer leaves is gripped firmly at the base and bent, it will snap off. The leaves can be removed, and what remains is like a small artichoke heart that can be steamed, roasted or boiled to make kuaka, a bitter vegetable available at any time of the year. Kuaka is delicious as a relish with fatty foods like eel, mutton birds, or pigeons, or in modern times, pork, mutton and beef. Different trees were selected for their degree of bitterness, which should be strong for medicinal use, but less so when used as a vegetable
Tips for Growing Delicious Cabbage Heads
Cabbages grow best during cool weather and are usually planted as a spring or fall crop to avoid growing during the heat of summer. While the cabbage seeds can be sown directly into the garden’s soil, you’ll get better results from seedlings started indoors under lights or purchased as transplants.
Plant the seeds indoors about four to six weeks before you intend to set them out into the garden. Cabbage plants are frost tolerant and can be planted in the garden very early in the spring. For a fall crop transplant the seedlings into the garden during mid to late summer depending on the variety and the recommended days to maturity.
The key to growing great cabbages is to provide a rich soil and to irrigate as required to insure that the plants have all the nutrients and moisture needed for rapid and uninterrupted growth.
Care and Harvesting of Organic Cabbages
Cabbage Worms are the main pest but they can be easily controlled organically by hand picking or through occasional applications of BT (Bacillus thuringiensis). Heads can be harvested whenever they reach the desired size but will also hold nicely in the garden after the cabbages reach maturity. Heads left in the garden too long will often begin to split. You can slow maturity and delay splitting by pruning the roots. Simply drive a spade into the soil around the heads to sever the roots of the growing cabbage plants.
So generation X lets grow some cabbages in the backyard a Premium Late Flat Dutch would feed the family for a week, or keep your eyes open for some cabbage tree shoots or roots to simmer and eat with your chops.
Next article will be about me, my niece and her children (3 generations) gathering, preparing, cooking and eating Cordyline australis. We might just plant some cabbage seeds for those kids to grow!
Watch this space……
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