March 08, 2014
We headed north from New Plymouth towards a small coastal town called Mokau. Mokau is best known for its river, or more specifically the fishing and whitebaiting that draw visitors here.
In general, the term whitebait refers to juvenile fish of various species that travel along coasts and into river estuaries worldwide. Once in a river, they can be caught with nets, which is known as whitebaiting.
To protect dwindling fish populations in New Zealand, whitebaiting is seasonal, the period being about 3 months. They can be frozen, but the best way to have whitebait is fresh. Since New Zealand happens to have a particularly delicious species of whitebait and a short season for procuring them, they are considered a delicacy.
Whitebait are very small; so the entire fish is eaten, usually stirred into scrambled eggs or made into an egg-based fritter to be sold at roadside stands . They sometimes appear on menus of restaurants specializing in seafood, too. It’s been awhile since I’ve had whitebait, but I do remember it was delicious and thinking the flavor reminded me a bit of lobster.
(Note: As I write this post, we’re in lockdown in Auckland, but as soon as we come out I’ll go to a restaurant that serves whitebait and update my impression of it.)
As we approached Mokau, our coastal road went somewhat inland and dipped down to a low bridge over the wide Mokau River before angling back up to the town. The scenery was striking with light colored cliffs, native bush, and large flat rocks near the mouth of the estuary. Just outside this area was a huge rock monolith that looked like an elephant, aptly named Elephant Rock.
We made a stop at the Whitebait Inn, famous for its whitebait fritters. Unfortunately we were still full from breakfast and opted to just get coffee. I regret this now—it would have been better to have one of their fritters just to taste it even if it meant having to discard most of it. But not wasting food is so ingrained, both primally and culturally, that it’s easier said than done. I usually make myself feel better about this sort of thing by sharing my food with whatever birds are around, but this isn’t always appreciated by the locals.
So coffee in hand, we got back on the road and headed towards the glow worm caves at Waitomo. –Cyndi
