George Jackson believes Māori bread is the future.
Traditional Māori breads could soon end up on supermarket shelves if Whanganui East baker George Jackson has his way. In fact, Jackson is surprised that parāoa rēwena and other Māori breads have not already been commercialised.
“You got Burgen, you’ve got Freyas, you’ve got budget bread, you’ve got Yarrows, you’ve got all sorts of brands.
“Why is there no Māori bread there, but yet there’s all this other bread? That’s something that just plays with my head,” Jackson said.
Parāoa rēwena is a traditional Māori sourdough that uses a potato starter bug as the rising agent, giving the bread a unique taste.
“It’s a hard one to describe. I’d say it’s like a sweet and a sour,” Jackson said.
“Some people like it just fresh with butter on it. I like mine toasted with butter and jam. Sky’s the limit really – it’s technically bread, so, you know, I could go on all day.”
Baking rēwena is a deep-rooted tradition for the Jackson family, passed down through the generations.
“We’d be asleep, wake up to Nan at four in the morning baking the bread and cutting herself a piece with some butter and a cup of tea. Once it’s baked she would cool it outside on the step and then bring it in and cut it up, then the kids would just get into it.
“The bug itself does date back to the 1840s. My grandmother [used] the same starter when we were kids, it was passed on from her mother who acquired it from one of the chefs on a Bowring port ship that entered into Wellington Docks back in the 1840s.
“All sorts of Māori families, grandparents, whānau members made it. I grew up eating it, because my family made it. It’s kind of throughout Aoteoroa. It always has been,” Jackson said.
Now, 182 years later, Jackson’s family tradition is a popular local business in Whanganui East. He says his core motivation is to keep the culture alive.
“It’s getting harder to access the bread. Of course it’s still alive, but as the new generation of kids grow up, we’re just getting so busy, old people with the knowledge die off. Some families carry it on, some don’t.
“If we don’t nurture the culture now, it’s going to disappear slowly.”
Unesco recently recognised the cultural importance of parāoa rēwena. The agency selected Jackson’s rēwena for its “Breads of the Creative Cities” project, promoting staple foods that play a culturally significant role in a community’s heritage.
“It’s just a showcase of bakers around the world. And I suppose the recognition that you get from it is, is pretty cool.
“It’s giving the rēwena bread, not just mine, but rēwena bread itself- the recognition that it should have got.”
Jackson’s bread is already well received by the community, but his plans extend much wider.
“My plan has been for a long time to sort out my plastic bag printing. At the moment it’s just a sticker slapped on. So we’re getting the artwork sorted which is in the process. And once that’s done then my plan is to approach a few bigger outlets.
“I’m trying to eventually make a gap for history to go in, you know. Where it should have been from the beginning.”
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