For almost 20 years now, Mrs InFrame has been coming up with a special 12-day menu to celebrate the “Twelve Days of Christmas”.

While the “Twelve Days of Christmas” traditionally starts on Christmas Day (December 25) and runs through to 5 January, we usually do it as a countdown to Christmas – It just happens that this year we were really busy, and I wasn’t able to get the list out until the end of the traditional 12 days.

My wife alternates each year between the traditional and the New Zealand version, otherwise known as “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”.

This year was the Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness Edition.

The dishes usually have a direct correlation to the songs (Five Big Fat Pigs = Pork/Ham/Bacon), others use a fair chunk of artistic license as, if we stuck COMPLETELY to the original “Twelve Days” song’s days’ feathered features, we’d be swimming in poultry with French Hens, Swans a Swimming, Geese a Laying etc. etc. otherwise.

And while the fast-food chain Colonel Harland Sanders’ founded predates even McDonalds in New Zealand, so it holds a special place in our nation’s stomachs, I don’t think a “12 Days of KFC” would be dieticianaly advisable.

I’ll do my best to explain the pairing concepts as we go.

So sit back and prepare to adore what my true love made over the Twelve Days of Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness 2024

A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree

Broccoli & Anchovy Pasta with Blueberry Smoothies

Pukeko, otherwise known as the “Australasian Swamp Hen”, are blueberry-colored birds that live in or near creeks and wetlands. where they can feed on tiny fish (like anchovies). The penne pasta looks like Ponga logs, with the broccoli representing the ferny plume of the Ponga tree.

Two Kumara

Baked Kumara with Mole Sauce

Kumara are a sweet potato. For this dish we baked kumara, filled if with vegetables and chocolate mole sauce, which can represent the dirt or mud kumara are dug out of.

Three Flax Ketes (“Kits”)

Black Cake with Cream and Purple Sprinkles

Harakeke is the New Zealand Flax plant. It can be woven into kete (carry bags) and is also a food source for the Tūī – a native New Zealand bird with black-blue-green feathers and a white plume under its neck.

This is where the inspiration for this dish lies – Black Cake (like the feathers), with the cream and sprinkles representing the plume and blue-green hues,

Four Huhu Grubs

Prawn Mousse Filled Pasta Shells

Huhu grubs are a creepy crawly larva-like delicacy usually served at most “Wild Food” festivals. They are renowned for their gooey-squishiness when you bite into them.

The ribbed pasta shells resemble Huhu grubs, with the Prawn Mousse and Marinara Sauce giving them their squishy centre.

Five Big Fat Pigs!

Battenburg Cake

The pink outside of the plump Battenburg Cake represents portly pigs. The rich, sweet, chocolate cake that makes part of the cake began its life as a “muddy” mix, which pigs like to wallow in.

Six Pois a Twirling

Vegetarian Spaghetti and Meatballs

Poi are little bags on woven string used in Māori dance and cultural performances.

We think these mushroom balls look like Poi, E(h)?

(We only had enough spaghetti for my wife’s dish, so I had these smaller penne rings)

Seven Eels a-Swimming

Sushi

The Longfin Eel are native to New Zealand. and can be found in lots of muddy waterways – even the creek that runs past our house.

The Māori name for eel is “Tuna”, which is why Mrs. Frame had tuna sushi.

I had Katsu Chicken sushi. pictured above) with its nori seaweed wrapping looking like an eel wrapped around lettuce looking like waterway greenery.

Eight Plants of Puha and Nine Sacks of Pipis

Citrus Lymph Flush and Seafood Pizza

Puha is a leafy, green, wild vegetable that usually grows in or near waterways, so a detox drink made of verdant fruit and veges matches the liquid and color categories.

Pipis are bivalve mollusks like cockles. We kept the aquatic theme with seafood pizza.

Ten Juicy Fish Heads

Crab Stick Dogs

Despite the name, Crabsticks are usually made out of fish. Deep fried in batter they become very juicy. With some coleslaw salad and sauce the dogs got even juicier!

The addition of half a scoop of chips was just a given.

Eleven Haka Lessons

Roast Pork and Vegetables

The Haka is synonymous with Māori culture. 

A fantastic Māori cooking method is the Hāngī – cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven, called an umu.

The foods Mrs. Frame used in this (above ground) roasted dish – Pork, Kumara, Potato and Pumpkin – are all typical ingredients in a Hāngī.

Twelve Piupiu Swinging

Pastry Wrapped Sausages

Piupiu are a Maori grass skirt, as can be seen in the iconic Poi e music video mentioned above. When the dancer wearing it moves the individual threads spread out and sway.

We have made these pastry-wrapped sausages several times before, usually around Halloween and called them “Mummy Dogs”, as, like piupiu, we cut the pastry into long strips, which we wrap around leg-like sausages.

We hope you’ve been inspired to try some of these, or your own version next Christmas.

From the Napier in Frame family to yours, we hope you had a Merry Kiwi 2024 Christmas and will have a safe and happy 2025 New Year!