OPINION:
Summer is the season for fruit crops such as cherries, plums, apricots, peaches and other stone fruit, including almonds. A lesser-known but equally abundant summer crop in Aotearoa is the karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus). Ripening in late January, February and March, the karaka drops a huge bounty of sweet-smelling bright orange fruit all around the tree. Although the flesh is edible, it is only a thin layer, not particularly appealing in taste and potentially very dangerous because the seed contains karakin, a strong alkaline toxin.
The Whanganui district has a small township which until very recently was called Maxwell. Its name was changed back to its original name, Pākaraka, which is also the name of the local pā. Named after the karaka tree, Pākaraka recognises the cultural importance of this native tree. Groves of old karaka trees often indicate traditional pā sites, as these were actually ‘orchard’ trees. Although the tree is listed as endemic, some Māori oral history states that Māori brought the karaka to Aotearoa. It also grows in the Kermadec Islands and the Chatham Islands, where it is called kōpī and is culturally very significant to Moriori. The karaka was deliberately introduced to and grown all over Aotearoa by Māori, including areas where it was not part of the local native flora.
The large seed inside was an important food source for Māori, and like the European almond, was roasted into a tasty snack, or ground into flour for making a kind of cake. If the karakin in the seeds is not removed, it can cause convulsions and even paralysis. To extract the toxin and make the seeds edible, they were soaked and cooked in a long and elaborate process.
I recently spent a few days with a few family members in Auckland, and one of our daily tasks was sweeping karaka fruit off the footpath in front of the house to prevent passersby from slipping or tripping over the masses of fallen fruit.
