Grow: Wāhine finding connection through food

Photographer and food writer Sophie Merkens has travelled the length of the country to meet New Zealand women with a special connection with food; women who grow, gather, hunt and forage from the land.

Food has always played a big role in Sophie Merkens' own life, and she's developed a career around it, working as a recipe developer, food stylist and photographer.

Drawn to the stories of how food can be a central force of people's lives, work and travels, she decided to set out an epic trip - from Cape Reinga to Bluff, she met 35 inspiring women.

She has published a book about the experience Grow - Wāhine Finding Connection Through Food.

She spoke to beekeepers, bakers, divers, growers, fermenters and hunters travelling in her kitted out camper van, she told Katheryn Ryan.

Kay Baxter was “hardcore” but she loved her encounter with the veteran regenerative grower, she says.

“I love her, she called me out because I said something about sustainability and she called me out and she was like, it's not enough, if we just aim to sustain we're not going to survive on this planet.

“She's very generous with her knowledge, I learnt that you can grow a lot of food in a small place, and that you can be connected to your food, whether or not you have land to grow.”

Dr Jessica Hutchings was also a source of inspiration, she says, grounded as she is in kaupapa Māori.

“It's such an absolute honour to have Dr Jessica Hutchings in the book, she is so generous with her knowledge her kaupapa and the world's first indigenous organic verification and validation system that she helped bring into this world.

“She talks about it as a place, a framework in which you can be Māori and grow as Māori and speak Māori.

“And it's a way to do things differently grounded in indigenous thinking, which I just think is so beautiful and needed, there's so much to learn from that space.”

Angela Clifford’s advice was you don’t need land so much as community to grow, she says.

“Angela has said if you can't grow your own food, find support around that, maybe a community that supports you, or community garden, community pantries, there are a lot of ways to support people to have access to healthy, regenerative food.”

Fleur Sullivan, she says, was an “absolute joy” to meet.

“Fleur is amazing, you can't not love her. She is just an absolute joy. I was intimidated to meet her because, of course, she's amazing and she has pioneered in a very male dominated restaurant scene when she joined it. But she's just an absolute joy.”

Sullivan is at 80 still an enthusiastic forager, she says.

“She just loves food and she loves foraging and she wants to be out there collecting the apples and she wants to be out there making cheese from seawater I actually had a conversation with her about a week ago and her granddaughter knows how to forage for mushrooms.

“She knows which ones to pick. And you feel her joy and her pleasure and her excitement. She has so much enthusiasm for it, it's just contagious.”

Pania Te Paiho is reconnecting wāhine with hunting, she says.

“Her waitlist to take women hunting is over a decade long. That is how much need there is in those communities and in society. And that's how many women want to learn how to go and hunt and feed their families and have that independence and it's outstanding.”

Another character in the book is Zephyr Florence, the van that took her up and down the country.

“It’s like a person almost kind of my mate on the road. So, I bought Zephyr for the project. But I've been wanting to buy a kitted-out van for a while. She's slow but reliable and mechanically sound, has a little kitchen in the back and a bed that converts into a workspace.

“So, you know, I had all my gear in the shelves and had a double burner like gas burner, so I could cook coffee wherever I went.

“And it just gave me complete freedom really to go and meet these women where they are and to explore Aotearoa, I mean we just live in the most phenomenal country.”