Our oceans and forests offer some of the best hunting and fishing in the world. However, we have native herbs and fungi that are also first-class edibles. Our ocean offers us fine sea salt, and the bush hides a spicy native pepper and other goodies. Let’s look at what’s available right in our backyard.

NZ Sea Salt

In an attempt by my parents to combat childhood boredom, I’d be sent to the beach with instructions to collect a small bottle of seawater. I would tip the contents into a pudding bowl and leave it balanced on the deck rail in the sun. Eventually, the water evaporated exposing about a tablespoon full of dirty looking crystalised sea salt. This ‘magical’ transformation took all day and, to a small child, was worse than watching paint dry. However, I never forgot the process and still use it today. I often find myself teaching adults who, surprisingly to me, have never played the childhood game of salt scientist.

Over the years, I’ve perfected the technique, and my salt is now whiter and brighter. The quality has improved, mainly due to the fact I no longer collect from ankle-deep, flounder-stirred mud pools. If you have kids, or are a big kid yourself, then I highly recommend making your own sea salt – 600ml of salt water should make around 40 grams of beautiful New Zealand sea salt. Most will agree that salt is a must for meat cooking. Salt is usually paired with pepper and, fortunately for us, we don’t have to buy it from the shop.

Kawakawa Pepper

What many people don’t realise is that our native kawakawa plant is a cousin of the pepper we buy at the supermarket. The store-bought pepper comes from the plant Piper nigrum, which literally translated means black pepper, whereas Piper excelsum, aka our kawakawa, roughly translated means excellent pepper. But is it excellent? I certainly think it is, but some may say that’s my Kiwi bias showing. However, I think it’s more to do with fresh is best, and as kawakawa grows here, we won’t get fresher than that.

Kawakawa is a plant endemic to New Zealand, which means it’s native only to this country. Kawakawa is easily recognised by its lush-looking, heart-shaped leaves, often quite holey due to the very hungry kawakawa caterpillar. However, it’s not the leaves that we’re looking for but the fruit of the female plant. More specifically, it’s the seeds of the female fruit we want. The seeds will dry to become small, but big-on-taste, peppercorns.

The female and male plants look the same when not in flower. Therefore, we need to know the difference between the flowers. The male flower spike is tall, thin and, as it matures, becomes covered in small black hairs (technically pollen), whereas the female flower spike is short, smooth and plump. The female has seeds that ripen inside sweet, orange-coloured, cylinder-shaped fruit. Sometimes the female fruit is referred to as a cob. Unless we want to compete with hungry birds, and most likely lose, then the female cob needs to be collected before it fully ripens. The fruit needs to be picked before it turns from green into a bright orange bird beacon.

The female fruit ripen over the summer months. Collect the cobs when they’re plump and green or with a slight tinge of orange. Spread them out in a darkish, well-ventilated place to dry naturally; there’s no need to remove the seeds from the flesh. Turn them every couple of days, particularly in the first few days when they’re full of moisture. The fruit will turn from green to orange to dark brown as they dry, eventually shrinking to about one quarter of their size. Once fully dry, the pepper can be stored in an airtight container until it’s ready to be ground. The taste is a burst of flavour that’ll have you asking yourself, “Why am I still buying pepper from the supermarket?!”

Horopito

It’s often referred to as bush pepper but horopito (Pseudowintera colorata) isn’t related to kawakawa and isn’t even in the pepper family. However, one nibble on the leaves and we find out why it’s commonly referred to as pepper. The first taste seems to be uninteresting, but suddenly, out of nowhere, the heat is there – and in a big way. A peppery coating quicky surrounds the mouth and, although it arrived a bit late, the taste is powerful and long-lasting!

Horopito not only contains a tasty mouth fire, but it also holds beautiful natural oils. These abundant oils make it a good candidate for a special herbal infusion. A horopito-infused oil can be drizzled on meats and salads – or even rubbed on sore muscles!

When making plant-infused oils, the leaves need to be crispy dry; moisture is not our friend when it comes to infusions and can cause spoilage. Dried horopito leaves can be infused in any oil or fat used for cooking. Infusion can be as easy or as complicated as we want.

The simplest version is a few leaves warmed with oil in a pan. More complicated scenarios require temperature-controlled crockpots operating for hours on end or double boilers watched like a hawk. My own lazy preference is to infuse in a crockpot that has a submerged thermometer. This way, the temperature is accurately and automatically controlled for many hours. Infusing oil is best done at around 40°C or below, particularly if infusing into delicate oils, which are easily damaged by heat. Horopito oil and fat infusions are a great way to store the hot bush flavour. Why not collect some and have it ready for adding to meals or for those special occasions?

Horopito is found at higher altitudes. For example, I’ve seen it growing on Mount Taranaki and across the top of the Kaimai Ranges. Sometimes the plant is referred to as mountain horopito or mountain pepper. Horopito has blotchy leaves with a mix of green, red and sometimes even silver markings; I noticed the plants on Taranaki were very silver and pink. Horopito looks similar to the more common red matipo (Myrsine australis). However, a quick nibble on a leaf will leave no doubt in your mouth.

Horopito can be added to a meat dish as whole leaves in a similar way to how bay leaves are used. Horopito can also be added to a meal as a dried powder; this powder can be added to a meat rub or crumb as well. Add some kawakawa pepper and you’re in for a spicy kick!

To make a horopito powder, collect the leaves and space them to dry in a dark, well-ventilated area; check and turn them every few days until crisp dry. The darkness of the drying room is important because light is detrimental to the leaf – too much light and our leaves will be washed out of colour as well as their taste. The dry leaves can be powdered and stored in an airtight container ready for use.

Hen and Chicken Fern

With nearly two hundred different species of ferns, New Zealand arguably has some of the world’s best. Green and luxurious, they sway on the sides of tracks or can be found scrambling up large trunks. Some of our tree ferns are among the tallest in the world and one, the silver fern, is a well-known Kiwi icon. However, famous doesn’t equate to edible, and although the silver fern lines the edge of many bush tracks, it’s not suitable as food. Fortunately, several of our ferns are, and one of the most popular is also one of the easiest to identify.

Hen and Chicken fern (Asplenium bulbiferum) has edible baby fronds, delicacies which emerge from the centre of the plant. These koru-shaped curls or pikopiko are the part we want to collect for eating. Hen and chicken is one of the soft ferns that can be found gracing the

edges of tracks. With waist-high arching fronds, it can spread to over a metre wide. Hen and chicken ferns prefer a damp location with dappled light. They’re easy to distinguish from similar looking ferns because of the tiny baby ferns that grow on top of their fronds.

Unfortunately, pikopiko aren’t available to harvest all through the year – the best time to hunt out these curls is in autumn and spring. Don’t get too excited about collecting a sack-full though, because it’s common to find only one pikopiko per plant; harvesting from this fern is a labour of love.

Cooking with pikopiko is done in a similar fashion to asparagus. Pikopiko are delicious lightly fried in butter, or added to soups, stews or boil-ups. These delicate ferns don’t take long to cook so are best added near the end of the process or, like asparagus, they’ll turn to mush.

Hen and chicken are a tasty bush meal, but unfortunately, deer like pikopiko too. If we don’t find any of the mini curls, it may be because our four-legged friends have beaten us to them!

Native Mushrooms

New Zealand is reported to have around 20,000 species of fungi, but unfortunately, only a few dozen are suitable for the dinner table. Two of the best eating mushrooms are the tawaka and the oyster. Tawaka (Cyclocybe parasitica) has a meaty mushroom flavour and can hold its own on the plate, needing no more than salt, pepper and a knob of butter in a hot pan. Think of the heartiest field mushroom you’ve ever had and you’ll be getting close to the tawaka taste. The depth of flavour also means it’s perfect for making into a tasty sauce. These mighty mushrooms are weighty and finding just a few will be enough for a decent meal.

Tawaka are semi-parasitic fungi which, as the name suggests, feast on the goodness of their host. Tawaka are usually found on wounded and dying trees. In my experience, it’s common to see them sitting along a limb that has broken away from the main trunk. Although they grow on many trees, the most common ones I’ve found them on are poplar, houhere/lacebark, mahoe/whiteywood and tawa.

Tawaka grow as large as a dinner plate, but by that stage, they’re well past their best; we want to collect them when they’re about hamburger-bun size. When they’re young, they actually look a bit like burger buns sitting in a tree. Fortunately, tawaka is fairly easy to identify – they have a bun-shaped cap the colour of lightly cooked bread and a dark veil covering their spores underneath. The veil eventually falls away and hangs on the stalk like a loose brown skirt. Tawaka has a delicious mushroom smell.

Oyster Mushrooms

The second fungi worth adding to our menu are the native oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus spp.) There are several different species found in New Zealand bush, and they’re all edible. Oyster mushrooms are involved in the processing of decayed organic matter. Therefore, they’ll likely be on trees that are wounded or dying. For example, cabbage trees (Cordyline australis) have, since the early 1980s, suffered from an illness referred to as ‘sudden decline’, which eventually leads to the tree’s death. As the cabbage tree becomes weak, its bark starts to delaminate from the trunk, and it’s here where the oyster mushroom finds its temporary home. Oyster mushrooms are also found snuggled into the open armpit left by a wind-torn limb. Sometimes oysters are found along, or even inside, fallen, hollowed-out tree trunks.

Oyster mushrooms are one of the easier fungi to identify, mainly because they’re often literally shaped like an ocean oyster with an obvious wavy edge. Most oyster mushrooms don’t have a stem, or if they do, it’s very small. Look for deep gills that fan out on the underside of the cap; if there’s a leg on an oyster mushroom, these corrugations will carry on down its length.

Oyster mushrooms can grow very thick, fleshy and large, but like tawaka, as they age, they lose some of their flavour and the texture becomes a bit like eating gumboot. Oyster mushrooms are a delicacy that fetch top dollar and are best when collected at about the size of a small saucer.

Oyster mushrooms can be turned into gravy or sauce, added to soups or stews, or simply fried in butter. Their taste is delicate and lighter than a field mushroom. Oyster mushrooms are also suitable for drying and keeping for a rainy day. To dry mushrooms, simply slice them thinly and place in an oven on low heat until the moisture has evaporated. Dried mushrooms also make a lightweight tramping food, which can be rehydrated simply by adding water.

In this country, we’re clearly spoilt with amazing natural foods. What might not be so obvious is that we also have native plants and fungi that are useful in first aid and health. Many of these are considered traditional Māori plant medicine or rongoa rakau. In the next edition, we’ll have a look at some of these special treasures.

Carolyn is a landscaper turned forager. She has a strong focus on medicinal herbs and plants that have traditional uses. Carolyn holds workshops on using medicinal herbs and foraging, and co-founded Prepper Kiwi, an initiative which provides information on foraging, plant identification and their traditional uses.