Roving Maori chef Pete Peeti finds himself on Rakiura/Stewart Island in this instalment of his long-running te reo based cooking series. The area has kai moana in abundance, but Peeti is interested only in the rich orange flesh of the salmon. Following an entree of cream cheese and smoked salmon pate, the episode’s main course is a tour of the offshore sea-cage salmon farm at Big Glory Bay. It stocks 900,000 Chinook or King salmon — less one, which features in a Thai curry (with a side dish of sashimi) prepared for Peeti by the farm’s supervisor.

Chef Cameron Petley was a fan favourite on the 2011 season of MasterChef New Zealand. In 2015 the Putaruru outdoorsman got his own Māori TV cooking show. The 20-part series saw down-home Cam (Tūhoe, Ngāti Ranginui) touring local markets and dining with whānau, providing tips for tasty kai. In this first episode he visits Avondale Markets with Dead Lands actor Lawrence Makoare, and heads home to shuck mussels, talk fusion food (mussel donuts!), and cook Makoare’s KFC (“kai for cuzzies”) fritters; in return he throws together a duck and watercress salad.

This “best of” episode from Māori TV’s long-running te reo food show revisits stories that presenter Peter Peeti has shot throughout the North Island. It‘s a celebration of food harvested from the land, rivers and sea, ranging from stingrays on the East Coast and the Tūhoe Wild Food Festival at Waimana, to goat hunting in Taranaki and fishing on Parengarenga Harbour. Peeti’s korero with the people of the land is equally important, and his giggle is worthy of Billy T. Recipes include mussel fritters, baked hapuka, venison casserole and curried snapper.

Gaylene Preston's documentary on writer Keri Hulme — filmed two years after Hulme shot to global fame on the back of her Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People — is both a poetic travelogue of Okarito (the township where she resided for 40 years), and a sampler-box of affable musings on her writing process, whitebait fishing, the supernatural, and the 1200 pages of notes for her next novel, the elusive Bait. Leon Narbey's camera is aptly alert to the magical qualities of the coast, from the resident kotuku to the surf and birdsong peppering Hulme’s crib.

Chef Cameron Petley was a crowd favourite on MasterChef in 2011 for his homestyle wild food recipes, before being eliminated by a cupcake challenge. Petley got another chance to share his enthusiasm for harvesting and preparing tasty kai onscreen in this cooking show for Māori Television. He shares whānau recipes (from kina omelettes and mussel fritters to pork belly), favourite local markets, and chef’s tips. The series became one of Māori TV's highest rating shows. In the second season Petley travelled to Rarotonga to sample Pacific cuisine.

Kai Time on the Road premiered in Māori Television’s first year of 2003. It has become one of the channel’s longest running series. Presented largely in te reo and directed and presented for many years by chef Pete Peeti, the show celebrated food harvested from the land, rivers and sea. Kai Time traversed the length and breadth of New Zealand, and ventured into the Pacific. The people of the land have equal billing with the kai, and the korero with them is a major element of the show —  often over dishes cooked on location. Rewi Spraggon succeeded Peeti for the final two seasons.

Māori Television hit the airwaves on 28 March 2004. This collection demonstrates how the network has staked its place as Aotearoa's indigenous broadcaster. The kete is overflowing with tasty morsels — from comedy, waiata, hunting and language learning, to award-winning coverage of Anzac Day. Māori Television HOD of Content Development Nevak Rogers backgrounds some MTS highlights here, while Tainui Stephens unravels the history of Māori on television here: choose from te reo and English versions of each backgrounder. 

This turn of the century comedy series was a satirical look at colonial life through the eyes of moderately hapless Māori chief Te Tutu (Pio Terei). Complications from over-fishing of kai moana (seafood) are the main plot spurs of this second episode. Meanwhile a newcomer to Aotearoa – Herrick's brother, an English army toff played by Charles Mesure (Desperate Housewives, This is Not My Life) – attracts the attention of Hine Toa (Rachel House), and hatches an evil plan (‘MAF’: Murder All Fishes). Meanwhile the patronising Vole continues his campaign of colonisation.

After Governor Hobson’s stroke, Willoughby Shortland stepped in and sent the Treaty south in the hope of more signatories. This fourth episode of comedian Mike King’s Treaty discovery series searches for where the sheet was signed on the Manukau Harbour. King learns of an (unfulfilled) ancient prophecy, and why Ngāti Whātua chief Apihai Te Kawau agreed to sign. King then heads across the harbour and uses his mission as an excuse to visit the Kāwhia Kai Festival, where he learns about the influence of the incoming “great white wave” on signatories.

This 2014 documentary celebrates Māori Television’s first decade. It begins by backgrounding campaigns that led to the channel (despite many naysayers). Interviews with key figures convey the channel's kaupapa – preserving the past and te reo, while eyeing the future. A wide-ranging survey of innovative programming showcases the positive depictions of Māoridom, from fresh Waitangi, Anzac Day, basketball and 2011 Rugby World Cup coverage, to Te Ao Māori takes on genres like current affairs and reality TV (eg Native Affairs, Homai Te Pakipaki, Kai Time on the Road, Code, and more).