In the Māori world, meals are not arranged as starter, main, and dessert. Food (kai) is thought of according to its source — te ngahere (the forest), te awa (the river), te whenua (the nourishing land) — and according to its sacred state: raw or living food may be tapu, while cooking by fire or earth renders it noa, common and safe to share. Meals are communal, governed by the maramataka (lunar calendar) and the seasons. The great festive meal is prepared in the umu (earth oven), where steam slowly cooks the gifts of Papatūānuku.

Stones heated red-hot, a pit dug, food wrapped in leaves, everything covered with earth and water that creates a gentle steam. Emblematic technique of the Māori and Polynesian world — and intimately linked to Hineahuone, herself shaped from the one (red earth) of Kurawaka: cooking in the earth is cooking in the very body of Papatūānuku the Earth-Mother.