Coastal Delicacy · Raw Sea Urchin
Kina
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What's actually eaten is the urchin's gonads, not its flesh — five bright orange tongues inside a shell that's otherwise almost entirely spine and water.
The spiky kina shell is cracked open to reveal its bright orange roe, scooped out and eaten raw with a spoon, straight off the rocks or spread on bread. Along the Bay of Plenty coast it's gathered by hand at low tide and shared straight from the shell rather than sold in shops.
Why it's made this way: Kina has been part of the Māori diet since long before European contact, and gathering it by hand off the Bay of Plenty coastline remains as much a seasonal ritual as a meal.
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