I salivate every time I read this thread, damn it. Stop it, all of you, at once!
Anyway, WOW said that the luau and the hangi were the same - I can't argue, but I do remember one of my friends who's something of an artiste when it comes to putting down hangis saying, many, many moons ago, that there was some fairly fundamental (fun-but-mental?) difference between the two. FWIW.
In the first of my several lurches in changed career direction, I left school and spent two seasons crayfishing out of Jacksons Bay on the West Coast of the South Island. I was deckhanding for a friend's father. We did very well, and the pay was, relatively speaking, the best I've ever had. The downside was, and still is, that I can't stand lobster/crayfish meat. Silly, isn't it - otherwise I'm one of the biggest seafood fans around.
I used to catch terahiki and cod with shortish longlines on our way back from checking the pots to catch something to eat ... There were Pacific oysters on the rocks not far from where our boat was moored and mussels as big as your fist - all for the picking up. They're probably still there, although the crayfish are much harder to come by now.
Jackson's Bay is pretty isolated and we used to have some pretty wild parties which I'll call "clambakes" but which, um, well, were emphatically less well organised and much more, er, yes.
