Professor Nick Roskruge, an ethnobotanist from the Ngāti Rāhiri hapū of Te Ātiawa, has made a career out of crops and potatoes. The taewa – potatoes which have grown a unique identity, flavour and texture here in Aotearoa – are his favourite. The most popular taewa is a purple potato, called tūtaekurī. Taewa, however, are much more than just small purple potatoes.
Taewa come in every shape, and a multitude of colours. There are taewa with dark brown skins and purple inside; pale white inside, and golden yellow outside; maroon red skins, and orange inside.
The origin of taewa is disputed. All potatoes originate from South America, including the kūmara. But unlike the kūmara, Roskruge says taewa do not feature in the surviving oral history of Māori.
Taewa have a unique and special connection to Māori, says professor Nick Roskruge. “When I grew up, everyone had those crops and foods they were familiar with. Most of them were handed down through generations. It became part of our identity, and was very important in terms of hospitality. Your crops, the food that came from your home, was what you put on the table.”
Supermarket potatoes tend to have been bred for commercial scale, and uniformity. But taewa cannot be easily grown at commercial scale, he says. “There tends to be many taewa on the root, which makes them a bit smaller as they compete for growth.”
Source: stuff.co.nz
Photo source: En.wikipedia.org
