17 Jun 2010

1844 feast recalled at exhibition

9:04 am on 17 June 2010

It was the feast of a lifetime and it's being recalled several lifetimes later.

The time was 1844, when Tainui and Ngati Whatua chiefs invited Auckland's 6000 Pakeha residents to feast on the slopes of Remuera, now known as Mt Hobson, to thank them for past hospitality and as a show of power.

Waatea News reports the menu was fish and chips, more than 9000 sharks and 11,000 baskets of potatoes were consumed over four days.

Exhibition developer Janine Love has used a water colour painting by Joseph Merret to recreate the event for Auckland museum's Kai to Pie show.

The exhibition also features a ball and banquet in 1854 at the Albert Barrack, at which Aucklanders celebrated Queen Victoria's birthday and the first sitting of the New Zealand Parliament, by dining in knee-deep mud on tinned food imported from around the world.