MORSELS OF MINDFULNESS
I’M ALL SET TO BEGIN THE food tour with my Maori guides, Charles Royal and his wife Tania, at the edge of New Zealand’s Lake Rotoiti. The five-kilometre-long trail loops through the lush Hinehopu Reserve in Rotorua (North Island), where we forage for native bush ingredients, and then, cook with them.
Royal begins by offering karakia, a prayer in Maori language to Mother Earth and Father Sky. His invocation reverberates through the densely canopied forest. He then turns to me, arms spread, and announces, “This is our garden. This is our kitchen.”
We are taking the Hongi’s Track, named after a fearsome Maori war leader Hongi Hika. Royal, a renowned chef specialising in
