Tiny Palates, Big Ambitions
Food is a vessel for memory, Tausani Simei-Barton likes to say. It’s a sentiment held within the tender young taro leaves he picks from three raised garden beds in the back yard of his parents’ Mt Albert home in Auckland. The plants descend from a root cutting brought from a village patch in Sāmoa by his mum’s father decades before strict biosecurity measures guarded Aotearoa’s borders.
In a rented kitchen in nearby Onehunga, the young chef sets the gathered leaves to simmer, watching over the pot as their fibres disintegrate. They’re later reduced further in coconut milk, filling the room with a heavy aroma.
Scooping up a mouthful of leaves, Simei-Barton tests them for the itchy tingle at the back of his throat that indicates the leaves aren’t ready to eat yet. It’s a skill he learned young from his uncles in Sāmoa — taro leaves can be poisonous if you don’t cook them for long enough. Once he gets the leaves just soft enough, the earthy, spinach-like palusami is ready. It is a nutrient-rich delicacy that tastes like Simei-Barton’s Porirua childhood, transporting him back to feasts when family members would vie for a portion.
In Onehunga, he mixes the palusami with cooked
