In
Polynesian cuisine, food was boiled in wooden bowls into which a red-hot stone was dropped. This was sufficient for heating liquids and pastes, but was insufficient to cook
taro or
pork; those foods were usually baked in an
earth oven. The Māori carried these traditions to
Aotearoa (New Zealand), making puddings of grated
kūmara (called
roroi) or mashed
kiekie flower
bracts in large wooden bowls. Camp ovens were imported in their hundreds from the 1850s, and were popular with Māori: they could be transported by waka or carried, and could stand on three feet in the embers or be hung by a chain. Camp ovens were used for making flour-and-sugar puddings, baking traditional
rēwena bread, and for the first pork-and-potato boil ups. == References ==