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Our first postcard …
March 20, 2007 | 9 Comments
comes from the south Pacific.
Our Postcards Series is about extending a handshake across cyberspace. Read about it here.
Please accord a warm welcome to our guest contributors. They will try to respond to comments and questions.
Paua Princess from The Paua Palace recalls family outings as a child – catching and cooking shell fish on the beach.
She lives in Auckland with her husband, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 budgies, 1 cat and 1 fish. She works for the police department, is a history and geography buff, and mostly writes about politics. Bee and Paua Princess have been buddies for a while. They share a warm friendship and a strange telepathy. Totally unbeknownst to each other, they started blogs the same day.
Seafood Kiwi style: Kai Moana
My friend Bee asked me to write a little something for her Cricket World Cup series of countries. Seeing as there is a lot about food on her blog, I thought I would write on seafood or kai moana as it’s called here.
Kai means food, Moana means sea.
So, my very favorite memories growing up are of Pipis steaming open on the bbq. The smell of them cooking brings back golden summers at the beach with a single whiff. It’s a great Kiwi tradition to go to the beach for the day, you catch your Pipis on the turn of the tide and have a bbq or campfire in the evening watching the sun set.
What is a Pipi?
A Pipi (pronounced Pippy) is a shell fish found commonly on New Zealand’s sandy beaches. Compared to the likes of Oysters, Mussels and Paua, the Pipi is fairly humble and simple. However it’s bite sized, sweet and when cooked right, tender.
Catching Pipis is the fun part. On the turn of the tide, that is when the tide is about to go out, go down to the beach with a bucket. This is when the Pipis are closest to the surface. Half-fill your bucket with water to keep the Pipi fresh.
Now, the best part. Wade about knee deep into the water, feel in the sand with your toes and fingers, you’ll feel the hard shells of the Pipis about 5 inches down, then you pull them from the sand and toss them into the bucket.
Be quick though, they have a strong tongue which they use to dig themselves down and they can vanish from your grasp within seconds. Watch out for crabs too, the shells feel remarkably similar and you might get nipped. Nobody ever said hunting Pipis wasn’t without its dangers.
Piha beach – where all the action takes place
Now that you have your Pipis, lug them back to the shore. If you are going to transport them home a wet sack is in order. Otherwise, if you are camping or planning to eat at the beach, keep them in the water filled bucket in the shade.
Your Pipis are alive at this point. Let them settle and hopefully spit out some of their sand. Now, people differ on this point so it’s up to the individual. You can either fill your bucket with fresh water and drown them or let them live until you cook them.
I think drowning is a more pleasant way to go, so I generally do the fresh water thing. It helps get rid of more sand too.
Ready to cook?
Again, there are schools of thought. Some people like to put a little water in the pot, chuck in the Pipis and boil, not too long though or they go tough.
Open the Pipis and as they open, you pull them out and let them cool. Eaten straight from the shell, salty and sweet they are delicious. Leftovers can be put into a bowl with vinegar and pickled, they are delicious in salads or on fresh crusty bread with real butter.
The other way to cook them is to throw them on the bbq grill, pull them off the minute the shells pop open and using a cool shell, scoop them out. This is the best way of all to eat them in my humble opinion, unadorned and simple.
Of course there are other ways with Pipis as with any other shellfish. They are great with chilli sauce, steamed with a little wine, in a creamy garlic sauce, make a nice chowder or soup and go great with other seafood, but my favorite is still the bbq. 
Pipis should never be refrigerated, they will die. And never cook a Pipi that is already open. It’s dead and will make you sick.
(This post was written for Jugalbandi.info and first published here. All pictures by Paua Princess.)
Spectacular NZ here and here.
A travel NZ site with great pictures
NZ cricket
Paua Princess’s newspaper
NZ cuisine
Filed Under: auckland, kai-moana, MUSINGS, new-zealand, pipi, Postcards, seafood, shell-fish, TRAVEL, vegetarian recipes
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9 Comments
Great post cards,you have been around!:))
One request.Every time I need to leave a comment here,I have to put my e mail and URL which takes me a long time.Is there anything you can do so it remembers my info for next time once I log in?Thanks.
don’t know asha, if there is a way around that. will check. a suggestion – go to all the wordpress blogs first, then go to the blogger blogs. if you go to a wordpress blog before coming here, it may remember you. (not sure unless you have a wordpress a/c). – b
Just checking!! Hurray it works!!!:))
Thanks Bee,life just got easier!;D
Thanks for such an interesting postcard! Pipis are completely new to me, but after your post, I can see why people love them. The description about the digging reminded me of people digging for quahogs (also called hard clams) back in Rhode Island, USA where I’m originally from.
What a beautiful postcard from NZ replete with the magic of its beaches! And Pipis is totally new for me – Indians from our coasts must have similar fond memories?
Lovely postcard and info….great pics.
Pipi’s are more flat and oval shaped than clams and have a creamy to mushroomy pinkish brown coloured shell. They are very similar to cockles to look at, although we have cockles here too
I’m sure the experience is similar to what American’s call a clam bake although having never had one, I can’t be sure. There is also a bigger version called a Tuatua (two ah two ah)which are just as nice but found on ocean beaches rather than estuary type beaches.
beautiful post-card and accompanying post
Jai and Bee, is it OK to write about it city where one has lived in before…..
yeah, especially if one has fled after doing something illegal
Beautiful postcard Bee … and thanxs for all the information.. a good learning experience
-Sushma
http://www.sunkiran.com
Pipis look like an exotic version of ’tisrya’, which are not as colorful. I love this postcard and I love this concept, too!