Photo: Supplied
Christall Lowe is a photojournalist with a love of food who's used her skills to create a visually stunning book celebrating kai, whakapapa and whānau.
She begins by sharing her first food memory - of her nana feeding her kamokamo mashed with butter - and writes about how her family shaped her experiences with food, particularly her grandad's "master hangi".
Kai: Food stories and recipes from my family table is more than a cookbook, Lowe says.
“I wanted it from the outset to be more about our life of kai so there are stories and memories and flavour memories woven throughout the whole book.
“Weaving these stories throughout was really important to me to really bring out the mauri or the life essence of the entire book along with the recipes.”
Kai is dedicated to Lowe’s nana and late brother.
Photos of her nana pottering around in the kitchen can be found throughout its pages.
“Nana was the cook of the family and she cooked for love, she cooked to show support for people, she cooked just for the sake of it. She would bring around plates of club sandwiches or bacon and egg pie or cream cake, just because.
“Cooking has always been a huge part of our lives and I was able to get some recipes from her and learn some things from her before she passed away in 2019.”
Some of those recipes include rēwena and steam pudding.
“My nana and aunties didn’t write recipes down, it was all in their heads, all in their hearts and hands in the way they worked the dough.
“It’s one thing for them to show me how to make it then I have to put it into a succinct written format...there was a lot of trial and error on my part with those sort of recipes.”
Other recipes are riffs on memories, like a passionate sorbet inspired by a cordial Lowe had as a child.
“It was pretty much like this is my whānau, our life, on a plate, in a book.”
Recipes:
Feijoa icecream
Photo: Christall Lowe
Honey-roasted yams with feta whip
Photo: Christall Lowe
