405853 Mon May 28 13:51:44 -0700 2007 50 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 2608265 I know that Native Americans used corn heavily as one of their staples, and perhaps lots of game meat (e.g. deer, rabbit, etc.). But beyond that I'm not really clear as to what constitutes Native American food or dishes? And, are there any cities that have a good concentration of Native American eateries? Mon May 28 13:51:44 -0700 2007 11583 ipsedixit 1 2608278 Think regional / tribal and you might get some useful answers. There is no one Native cuisine just as there is no one Native culture. Mon May 28 13:58:29 -0700 2007 2608265 68210 andytee 1 2608317 andytee is right, the food varies a lot by region and by what produce and meats are avaliable. Here in N CA we studied the Yahi Indians in school. One project was to collect acorns from the local live oaks, cookthem in a fire, grind them, and...yuck. Not something I'd eat again. I also tried fry bread on a reservation in New Mexico and buffalo in Montana. I'd guess that reservations, not cities, offer more choices. Mon May 28 14:16:56 -0700 2007 2608265 11231 Glencora 2 2608368 We tried to prepare acorns in California for school in the 50s. You have to lime the ground flour. Still...yuck! Mon May 28 14:51:54 -0700 2007 2608317 36661 Sam Fujisaka 3 4177522 Squirrels bury them as did Native Americans to get rid of the bitterness. Sun Nov 16 07:43:41 -0800 2008 2608368 169792 lgss 1 2608319 There's an excellent aboriginal restaurant in Ottawa: http://www.sweetgrassbistro.ca/ Mon May 28 14:18:44 -0700 2007 2608265 42449 mrbozo 1 2608365 Thinking about different staples provides a view of diversity: 1. Maize, domesticated by native peoples, from North America through Central America 2. Acorns in the coast range and foothills of the Sierra Nevada; add pinon nuts in the Sierras 3. Cassava in the Amazon 4. Beans, potatoes, and amaranths in the Andes 5. Native Americans also domesticated squash, tomatoes, chilis, others--as well as llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs Food systems varied widely by agricultural ecosystem from hunting and gathering to irrigated agriculture. Change came with contact with Europeans--steel implements allowed the Kwakiutl and other NW Pacific coast groups to potlatch slaves, canoes, bear grease, and salmon--overexploiting their environments for the first time. The horse allowed the plains populations to grow based on buffalo hunting. Today's more accessible Native American cuisines (all changed since contact with Europeans) include those of the Navajo, the Andes, the Amazon, and parts of Mexico and Guatemala. Mon May 28 14:49:44 -0700 2007 2608265 36661 Sam Fujisaka 1 2608471 Years ago, we were part of the entertainment for a NA scholarshio benefit. It took place in Manhattan, so I assume it was a New York tribe. They served rattlesnake chile, wild boar, bear, (rare, spicy tasting), wild turkey with sage sauce, (the most flavorful turkey I've ever had), vennison, rabbit stew, squash, grits I think, and salad. There must have been other vegetables, but I don't remember. Mon May 28 16:00:41 -0700 2007 2608265 13523 michelley 1 2608548 IIRC there's a very informative chapter on that in Waverly Root's Eating in America. Mon May 28 16:41:12 -0700 2007 2608265 11106 tatamagouche 1 2608670 If you're ever in the DC area, the Smithsonian's new Native America museum is worth checking out, especially for the cafeteria. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_40_38/ai_n6234530 Food is divided by different regions. The hardest part is knowing which to try. Mon May 28 17:31:59 -0700 2007 2608265 39874 chowser 2 4178363 I'll second a meal at the NA museum cafeteria... Some of the dishes are a little "fancied up" but most are pretty traditional, and that I've tried are good. Sun Nov 16 15:32:27 -0800 2008 2608670 135311 mpjmph 1 2609005 Well, it is American food ... salmon, turkey, wild rice, cranberries, blueberries, maple syrup, chilies, corn on the cob, etc, etc, etc. White man took that as his own too. A cookbook called The Art of American Indian Cooking talks about the Zuni Indians making battered squash blossoms ... which ironically I once had at Zuni restaurant in SF. Full circle, eh? This link to the book on Amazon allows you too look inside the book http://www.amazon.com/Art-American-Indian-Cooking/dp/1585740101/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/105-2595120-7206802 Here's a list of what seems to be every restaurant in North American that has anything to do with Native American food. http://www.nativerecipes.com/14.html It seems like an excellent site that has everything you want to know about Native American food like what it is, history, recipes, etc. When people ask your question, the answer ... "When I turn the question back on the questioners, people tend to answer: "Oh, they used to eat nut and berries, roots and small mammals, didn’t they?" In fact, I tell them that they are probably fixing and eating Native American foods in their own kitchens every day. " That site has an excellent list of Native American cookbooks. I stopped counting at fifty. A few sites This site has some good Native American food links as well as videos on how to prepare food like frye bread and a culinary class video http://www.squidoo.com/nativerecipes/ NativeTech: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes http://www.nativetech.org/recipes/index.php Native American Recipes http://www.ocbtracker.com/ladypixel/natrec1.html While this has recipes like Cherokee Huckleberry Bread ... so that's who I blame for huckleberries on every menu ... the Cherokee revenge ... and Frye Bread pudding ... did Native Amercans give us bread pudding too? ... Hopi corn and bean sprouts ... bean sprouts too? ... It also has a few exotic recipes like Taos beaver tail roast and Hopi baked prairie dog ... guess those recipes didn't take ... yet. Traditional Native American Recipes http://www.cookingpost.com/recipe.cfm Native American Recipes http://mypeoplepc.com/members/cherlyn/onefeather/id5.html One Feather either has done some creative cooking or we might owe popovers to Native Americans too ... there's a blueberry popover recipe. WIISINIWAN -- Food Recipes http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/recipes.html Native American Recipes http://www.thegutsygourmet.net/indian.html Mon May 28 19:45:44 -0700 2007 2608265 10264 rworange 1 2609060 Some of the best writing on this topic was published in 2003 for the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. There's one about the journal kept during the trip that starts with the White House dinner given in honor of the explorers by Jefferson and follows them as they run out of provisions and are forced to live off the land with the assistance of their native guides and the Indians they befriend along the way west. Several other books have useable recipes with American native food products that based on the dishes that were consumed on the expedition. The foods reflected in these books were those uninfluenced by Europeans, before westward expansion had brought different foods and cooking methods to the Indians and long before the reservations were established. Mon May 28 20:14:48 -0700 2007 2608265 32444 MakingSense 2 2609069 Just a note: from my reading, the OP asked about Native American cuisine. I took that to mean the Americas and all the original Native Americans, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. Mon May 28 20:19:40 -0700 2007 2609060 36661 Sam Fujisaka 3 2609086 Yes, you are correct Sam ... all of the Americas (not just U.S. portion of North America). And thanks to everyone for their thoughtful and insightful posts. Mon May 28 20:26:09 -0700 2007 2609069 11583 ipsedixit 3 2609177 Sure, but that's like saying "what exactly is native Asian food?" I think you have to deal with Native American food in a very regional way. Inuit foodways and those of the Andes are pretty far apart. I used just one example, the Lewis and Clark expedition, because it covered a pretty broad swath of the northern US, dealt with different types of tribal groups and how some educated explorers interacted with them and learned to adapt to their ways, keeping a journal of the experience. I'm sure there are other historical records of early contacts that would show similar records of what other Native American cultures were like. Mon May 28 21:07:32 -0700 2007 2609069 32444 MakingSense 4 2609204 MS, the different native Asian foods continue as they have over time. They were influenced but not destroyed or replaced by European contact. We agree completely in terms of the regional variation of native American foods--Inuit to Yanamamo are world's apart. The Lewis and Clark expedition provided a great chonicle of much of what has been lost in what is now a part of the US. What is nice, I think, is that Native American food is still a living, dynamic phenomena where Native Americans still survive somewhat as they did prior to contact--in the Andes, the polar regions, parts of Mexico and Guatemala, the Amazon, ... Mon May 28 21:25:38 -0700 2007 2609177 36661 Sam Fujisaka 2 2609090 "The foods reflected in these books were those uninfluenced by Europeans, before westward expansion" But does that define Native American food? If you took a snapshot of European food at that time would that define the cuisine? Italian food without tomatoes ... Eastern European / Irish food without potatoes? France without frites? Or even a snapshot of Asian food would not reflect the contributions of the Americas, especially chilis. What WAS Schezwan food in those days? Lewis and Clarke territory is only one section of the many Native American nations. Growing up in New England I was quite aware of the strong Native American influence in that area with a very different cuisine. It seems Native American cuisine had a far bigger impact on European cuisine than visa versa. Other than alcohol, what would you say the influence of Europeans was on Native American cuisine? Is Nuevo Native American cuisine any less valid? Well, there's the European influence I guess. Kai at the Sheraton Wild Horse Resort has a Native American chef whose dishes are influenced by the Pima and Maricopa tribes. It uses locally farmed ingredients from the Gila River Indian Reservation. Some dishes include ... - tribally raised buffalo with raspberry and tomatillo salsa - warm fry bread topped with Kahlua ice cream So there you go ... Native American cuisine. Mon May 28 20:29:50 -0700 2007 2609060 10264 rworange 3 2609247 The Lewis and Clarke expedition was only one example of contact with a series of tribal groups. Even In New England, your culture would have been influenced by many tribes who would have been different, not a single influence. Coastal tribes differed from upland groups who hunted and gathered or those who had primitive agriculture. They would have been very different from the Indians in the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana where I grew up or the mound builders in the north of our State. I think we have a tendency to ignore their diversity. In the US, we changed their culture and their foodways changed with it. We gave them firewater but many tribes had alcohol - grains and fruit ferment and they did that. The Spanish brought horses and then they traded things for guns which changed the way they hunted. They got new domesticated animals and crops, lived closer to settlements where they could trade for food products that they had never had before. They worked in settlers homes and learned new ways of cooking which influenced their own. They intermarried and adopted new ways of eating. Food in reservation stores today is just like in regular grocery stores. If you attend a pow-wow, they sell hamburgers and funnel cakes. Mon May 28 21:43:40 -0700 2007 2609090 32444 MakingSense 4 4184232 I remember being excited about going to a Pow Wow in elementary school and being disappointed by the funnel cake offered but I did fall in love with fresh roasted corn. Tue Nov 18 16:02:11 -0800 2008 2609247 152043 TampaAurora 1 2609827 My only experience was eating in a restaurant on an Arizona reservation one afternoon and having a catered group meal that evening in Utah. I don't remember too many specifics but the food was not highly seasoned - bland, in fact - and the lamb/mutton dish I had was very watery. The fry bread was also not too tasty, but was very greasy. As I watched the preparations for the "Indian Taco" dinner that night I nudged the Spouse and we both ran off to take some antacids before the meal. The food was heavy, greasy, and again, not seasoned. We were the only two in our group who did not have bad indigestion all night. I'm sure this experience doesn't speak for all Southwestern US Native American cuisine, but it's not an experience I'm eager to repeat. Tue May 29 08:07:31 -0700 2007 2608265 25244 rockycat 1 2610366 I'm glad you asked because really I was going with the Plains Indian stereo-type of roots, berries, deer. If you asked me about Native American food today I'd probably say fry bread. Also I had the picture of the poverty-level Native Americans whose diets and health have been ruined by cheap processed food. But I had no clue about Nuevo Native American food and the Native American chefs making dishes like at Arizona Kitchen, Wigwam Resort ... Grilled Buffalo Tenderloin Guajillo Roasted Fingerling Potatoes Blueberry Foam well, really, you gotta admit that's as Native American as you can get Other dishes on the menu .. Chile Rubbed Maple Leaf Duck ... Yellow Mole ... Sweet Potato and Roasted Corn Hash ... chile ice cream Well, you gotta take a look at this joint ... love the creme fraiche-topped dessert enclosed in what I'm guessing is a sugar-stick wigwam http://www.wigwamresort.com/templates/section-view.php?id=37 That and some of the food that is thought of traditionally Native American make me want to do a reverse Lewis and Clark ... setting out across the country to try some of this stuff. Some highlights - Jakes Bakery, NM ... "the best Pueblo bread ever eaten in his wood fired hornos. These round loaves have a crispy crust with a hint of mesquite wood that fires his oven." - Agave at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, AZ ... Grilled Hopi Bread with Roasted Eggplant Butter ... Roasted Squash, Bean and Mais with Balsamic Vinegar ... Nuevo here. - Corn Dance Cafe, NM ... buffalo chili in a jalapeno bread bowl ... venison shanks with garlic mashed potatoes ... grilled salmon with rosehip puree ... wild turkey with corn bread, and grilled corn with chili oil. - Buffalo Grill, OR ... owned and run by a Lakota Sioux ... buffalo pot pie, buffalo burgers, etc - Spirits Native American Restaurant, NC ... hmmm, not sure if I'm up for the poorly-named, IMO, buffalo chips and gator nuggets, though the fry bread sundae has potential. Also Raven's Reward Wild Meat Sampler - Buffalo, Alligator, Rattlesnake & Pheasant ... Azasazi Chips ... buffalo chili with fry bread ... Wild Rice & Anasazi Bean Burrito (as well as gator & buffalo burritos) ... maize salad ... franchises available http://www.spiritsnativeamericanrestaurant.com/ - Dream DancePotawatomi Bingo Casino, WI ... "reservations recommended" ... heh, nice turnaround ... Dream Dance Venison Rossini Spiced organic honey beets, hazelnut barley, bitter chocolate bordelaise It seems more about Wisconson cuisine from various ethnicities ... but ... Apfelpfannkuchen German Apple Pancake Carr Valley 10 Year Aged cheddar ice cream ... I want that... it really looks fantastic ... located in a Native American casino http://www.paysbig.com/dining/dreamdancemenu.htm - Tillicum Village, WA ... Traditional Indian Style Baked Salmon http://www.tillicumvillage.com/menu.html - Cuny Table Cafe, SD ... I don't care if the food is good ... the place seems worthwihile just for ambiance ... top of a large badland mesa on a gravel road run by two Indian ladies in a brown sheet metal building with a Homecooking sign with two booths and a table where you can eat Indian fry bread tacos. - Bluestem, OK ... Monthly traditional American Indian dinners including grape dumplings, corn soup, meat pies and fry bread - Saddle Peak Lodge, CA ... where the deer and the antelope plate ... Wild Boar Cranberry hash ...Three game sausages ... Roasted buffalo New York with pommes douphines, melted St. Agur blue cheese, onion soubise “French soup style” and wilted arugula ... tho more about Native American game than cuisine http://saddlepeaklodge.com/dinner/dinner.htm - Indigo Grill, San Diego ... Native food reinterpreted from Alaska Oaxaca like Alderwood Plank Salmon with Smoked Oaxacan Cheese - Fry Bread House, Az ... hand-stretched traditional made-to-order fry bread topped with chile or slatered with butter and chocolate - Angelina's Mexican Food Restaurant ... "a recipe handed down through generations ... The bread emerges glistening, puffy, crisp-edged and steaming hot" - Miccosukee Restaurant, FL ... the Miccosukee Platter has a sampling of native dishes, including gator bites ... bite them gators before they bite you - Cedar Pass Lodge, SD ... Sioux Indian Taco made from fry bread and seasoned buffalo Amaya Hotel, NM ... more of a contemporary menu with native ingrediants ... the most out there dish ... Tiwa Taco Indian Fried Bread Topped with Ground Buffalo, Black Beans, Baby Greens, Cheddar Cheese, Guacamole and Roasted Tomatillo Salsa http://www.hotelsantafe.com/dining/lunch_menu.html Navajo Hogan ... This seems to be the place ot go for fry bread ... reviewed by Gourmet Magazine if that means anything http://www.navajohogan.com/ As the infomercials say ... but wait, there's more. And if all else fails ... supposedly the Cheesecake Factory serves a chicken sandwich on "Indian Fry Bread". Tue May 29 10:36:20 -0700 2007 2608265 10264 rworange 2 2610564 Regarding Saddlepeak.... food is pretty good, splendid location... hundreds of carcasses hanging on the wall... but the culinary approach is not Native American be any extent. Its more like French meets Game.... plus some rotating fad accents to excite the surprisingly unsavvy Hollywood Elite diners that tend to show up incognito. Tue May 29 11:29:31 -0700 2007 2610366 42572 Eat_Nopal 3 2611170 Yeah, I'd have to agree with you about Saddlepeak Lodge. Tue May 29 14:22:07 -0700 2007 2610564 11583 ipsedixit 2 2612603 I've been to Indigo Grill and had a very good dinner there in the summer of 2005. Completely absurdly humongous portions, though. I thought that "Native" referred to the ingredients, but I could be wrong. The methods struck me as modern "creative" cuisine, but did indeed emphasize American ingredients. I had the cedar-planked salmon and liked it. Wed May 30 01:17:16 -0700 2007 2610366 17058 Pan 2 2676632 I greatly enjoy the Fry Bread House in Phoenix. You can feel your arteries snap shut in self-defense if you so much as look at the fry bread with chocolate and butter, but oh MAN is it ever good stuff! Wed Jun 20 05:56:04 -0700 2007 2610366 10996 JK Grence the Cosmic Jester 3 2679353 Several years ago while crossing southern Utah I bought both fry bread and 'dry' bread from a shop in Mexican Hat. Dry bread is the same dough, but cooked on the grill rather than in deep fat. Alton's Feasting on Asphalt also showed the making of dry bread during their stop on the Rez. We ate both at a lunch stop on top of the Mokee Dugway. In ways I liked the dry bread better. Both are best freshly cooked, but the dry bread keeps better. I've only found a few references on the web to dry bread. In ways it's just a thick flour tortilla. paulj Wed Jun 20 18:42:22 -0700 2007 2676632 12139 paulj 1 2610584 I'm hardly an expert, but I do know that in Minnesota (it might be more fair to say in the upper Midwest and Canadian prairieland) Native American diets relied heavily on wild rice: http://www.savewildrice.org/history ~TDQ Tue May 29 11:34:44 -0700 2007 2608265 12005 The Dairy Queen 1 2671549 Hello, I know this thread has been dormant over a week, but I never really got a chance to respond to it. Unfortunately, with Native American cuisine we kind of fly in the dark because we don't have great cookbooks remaining from the Pre-Colombian eras. In the U.S. & Canada... a lot of time went by between Colombus and the first thorough writings on Native American culture... and even then the most advanced tribes like the Iriquois & Navajo were already in a cultural demise and their whole world had turn around... so what they were eating in the 19th century isn't necessarily what they were eating in the 16th century. We have a little better luck in Mesoamerica because there are documentaries dating back to the 16th & 17th centuries as well as a plethora of archeological evidence, and the fact that many cultures remained closer to their Pre-Colombian life than did their counterparts in North America. What we know of Mesoamerican cuisine - and there are certainly some knowledge gaps - is that if you strip out non-native ingredients and techniques (which often are inconsequential) it highly resembles a lot of the contemporary cooking of Mexico & Guatemala. Many foreign ingredients in use today are simply economic & not culinary subsitutions (as is often assumed). For example, the widespread use of Cilantro in Mexico is not the result of an absence of quality herbs in Mesoamerican cuisine but a reflection of Cilantro's productivity. It grows so well & abundantly in Mexico that it came to be a cheaper replacement for native herbs like Basil, Verbena, Papaloquelite, Epazote, Hoja Santa, Chipilin etc., but it still gets used much the same way that Mesoamericans used Mexican Basil & Papaloquelite. Other changes in the same vein include: > Replacing Duck & Turkey with Chicken > Replacing Xoloscuintles (a type of hairless dog raised for its culinary delights) with Beef > Replacing hunting Wild Rabbits, Deer, Sheep & Boars with Lamb & Pigs > Replacing "spicy" herbs like Hoja Santa & Romeritos with Spice Route spices like Black Pepper & Cumin Overall when you compare the related Post-Colombian dishes with their Pre-Colombian examples we find that Mesoamerican cuisine is a bit more rounded & delicate. While most people - including many leading Mexican culinary stars - ignorantly assume that Mesoamerican cuisine was very limited without Post-Colombian ingredients... its actually not true. Not having lard, olive oil, spice route spices & old world domesticated protein only challenged the Mesoamerican cooks to come up with ingenious techniques & flavor combinations that produced intriguing results not unlike what many contemporary haute cuisine chefs seek. Now to get more specific of what Native Mesoamerican cuisine is: > Sauces Reign Supreme. Mesoamerican cuisine is all about sauces. According to various historical accounts it wasn't uncommon for Moctezuma to sit at a table with several hundred sauces presented to him. These include what the Aztecs called Mullis (the linguistic precurssor of Mole)... which were typically thick sauces of every chile, herb, nut & grain combination available with little bits of beast, vegetables or beans cooked in them. Cooking methods typically involved searing meats and/or vegetables on volcanic rock with continuous saucing to keep them from sticking (remember we are talking naturally lean wild meats and no lard/oils available)... then adding the rest of the sauce to thicken. Some Mullis were served hot, others room temperature. In either case they were typically served with Tamales which were slightly different than contemporary version as they didn't have any lard in them, and often had beans, amaranth or nut butter mixed in with the masa. As you might imagine these low fat tamales were not as spongy as today's instead they were moist like the center of a thick Salvadoran tortilla. When they weren't served with Tamales.... they were served with tortillas. In addition to the Mullis another important technique was & is the Mixiote. Mixiotes are pouches made from the "skin" of an Agave variety.... meats, vegetables & chili-herb pastes were wrapped in the pouch, then steamed over aromatic liquids including Pulque, Corn Beer, Salt Water, Chile Water & others. Variations on this included using Corn Husks, Banana Leaves & Hoja Santa leaves as the wrappers. Barbacoa / Pibil is another important technique. A hunk of beast is marinaded in a chile based paste overnight. Meanwhile volcanic rocks are heated & smokey wood rounded up. The red hot rocks go in the bottom of an underground pit, over the rocks goes the wood, above the wood a pot with liquid & vegetables, above the pot goes the marinaded beast laced with avocado leaves & wrapped in agave leaves, the pit is then covered.... and it slow cooks over 6 to 10 hours dripping juices into the pot. After its done the meat is butchered up and served with bowls of soup made from its juices, as well as some Nopales salad, a spicy roasted tomatillo salsa & tortillas cooked over a smokey fire. In addition to these methods there was all types of grilling & griddling of thin meats going on... as well as fire roasting of birds & rabbits etc.,... and of course hundreds of uses of corn masa. An important one.. is what Nahuatl speakers today call quesadillas... which are oxymoronically cheeseless. A big thin tortilla is hand patted and put to cook on a hot griddle... before flipping, an endless number of fillings are added off-center then folded over to create a relative flat turnover... sometimes these were drowned in a chile sauce and there it is pre-hispanic Enchiladas. Another common technique was to roast a wide variety of chiles, stuff them with a wide variety of leftoevers... and then drizzle them with thickened versions of leftover Mullis. There was of course a lot more to Mesoamerican cuisine than my brief examples... but you can pretty much see that most traditional food served in Mexico that isn't overtly of Iberian, Asian or African decent (such as Rice, Pasta, Sausage or Stuffed Loin dishes) is Native American cuisine. Mon Jun 18 15:03:55 -0700 2007 2608265 42572 Eat_Nopal 2 2678656 Wow, terrific and informative post. Thanks so much for posting that. The only comment I'd have which I said elsewhere in this topic is that what Europeans and Asians were eating in the 19th century isn't necessarily what they were eating in the 16th century. I doubt there are any French, Italian, Spanish ... etc restaurants today that are serving the cuisine of the period prior to the discovery of the Americas. Maybe the one exception is the handful of Medevil type of English restaurants, but that is more gimmick than anything to do with food. Wed Jun 20 14:39:53 -0700 2007 2671549 10264 rworange 3 2678716 I had an outstanding meal in Italy years ago that was an exception to that. A restaurant owned by a couple. She had completed a doctorate in history before studying at the Cordon Bleu, he did the wines. They offered special menus from the early Italian Renaissance. 14th and 15th Centuries. Farro, honey, etc. No corn, no tomatoes. Specialty wines produced from local vineyards with old grape varieties. Great meal and wonderful history and cultural lesson. Wed Jun 20 14:55:40 -0700 2007 2678656 32444 MakingSense 3 2680542 Very, very true. I think the majority of people don't know much about the Pre-Colombian cuisine and don't give full credit & acknowledgment to it (but they were just a bunch of indians).... so I like establishing the Pre-Colombian pedigree first. Otherwise, I have found that many foodies / writers that first approach Mexico hold a belief that Mexican cuisine is worthwhile because it has Spanish & French influences (at least that is what I have detected). But you are absolutely correct, in a world without historical baggage, prejudice or elitist views... cooks of Native American should have the same right as other peoples to incorporate outside & new influences while making them their own. Thu Jun 21 08:07:24 -0700 2007 2678656 42572 Eat_Nopal 4 2688404 The narrative "Naufragios" by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca gives some examples of what Native Americans in Florida, along the Gulf coast, and into Texas were eating in the early 1500's. I'd quote some for you, but my copy of the book is not in my home. I remember passages about the poorer tribes waiting desparately for various nuts and tunas to develop. He also mentions the poorest people not only eating every bit of animals they caught, but also grinding the bones to a powder to be consumed as well. If you do not know the story of Cabeza de Vaca, it is, IMO, one of the most fascinating true-life adventure stories in human history. His detailing of his 7-year journey is hardly focused on food, but it offers amazing insight into what life was like in the present-day U.S. southeast before the mass arrival of Europeans. Sat Jun 23 22:31:55 -0700 2007 2680542 46956 maestra 5 4184187 I remember reading an excerpt from "Los Naufragios" in high school and happen to have a copy on hand. What a coincidence--the chapter we read is entitled "Como los indios nos trajeron de comer" or "How the Indians fed us." (Disclaimer: my copy is in the original Spanish and my translation skills are now rusty.) According to Cabeza de Vaca, before they encountered the hospitable Indians (this is a relevant narrative at Thanksgiving time, now that I think about it!), the explorers had survived mostly on toasted or even raw corn, and they had eventually been forced to butcher their own horses. He says about the Indians: "nos trajeron mucho pescado y de unas raices que ellos comen, y son como nueces, algunas mayores o menores." So, a large quantity of fish and various nuts, if I am reading it correctly. Tue Nov 18 15:42:47 -0800 2008 2688404 152338 fallingup 1 2679481 Well, I'm not an expert, but I understand that there were a lot of New World domesticates that were kind of swept aside by the arrival of maize in eastern North America. I mention some of them, awkwardly, here just because, judging by the English names alone, they're foods I don't regret never having tried: erect knotweed, maygrass, American nightshade, little barley, chenopod and, my favorite, sumpweed. Yum! Also, there was a recent NPR Food piece on the aftermath of a whale hunt by Native Alaskans in Barrow: women boiling up huge pots of whale meat, blubber, etc, and distributing it. Wed Jun 20 19:40:51 -0700 2007 2608265 41864 optimal forager 2 2686766 For an insight into why Native American (North, South and Central) food never developed into a cuisine that is more than obscure, I suggest reading Guns,Germs and Steel. Among other reasons are the north/south axis of the New World as opposed to the East/West orientation of the Eurasian land mass. Crops could be imported and grown along the same latitude(climate) from China to France. Getting corn from its origin in Central America to the Mississipi Valley took thousands of years of acclimation so that corn only appeared in there around 1200 AD. Another factor was the absence of domesticable draft animals in North or South America. There were no oxen or horses to plough with, greatly limiting the efficiency of agriculture. There are many other reasons why, while it exists, one has to hunt for traces of pre-Columbian cuisine. Sat Jun 23 06:39:46 -0700 2007 2679481 107198 LRunkle 3 2687120 But even with the East/West orientation, we don't try to define a Eurasian cuisine that unites French and Chinese traditions. But this gets to more basic question, what is a cuisine? Isn't the term French? There is a well documented body of literature and a chef training tradition that defines classic French cooking. I suspect there was something comparable in China. But does it make sense to talk of the cooking traditions of a hunter/gatherer band of Crees in the Canadian forest in the same way? Did/do they think of themselves as having a cuisine? Do the cafeteria offerings of a museum define a cuisine, even if they use some ingredients that originated in the Americas? paulj Sat Jun 23 10:07:09 -0700 2007 2686766 12139 paulj 1 4176215 Create TV (PBS subchannel) has a Native American marathon today (Saturday) Main programs are a Seasoned with Spirit series, and several episodes of Taste of Louisiana http://www.createtv.com/CreateProgram.nsf/ScheduleLookup?ReadForm&date=11/15/2008#06:00AM Sat Nov 15 12:53:36 -0800 2008 2608265 12139 paulj 1 4177536 The 3 sisters: corn, beans, and squash are common as are regional nuts and berries. My husband is part Abenaki and jokes that "vegan" (which we are) is an old Native American word meaning "lousy hunter". Sun Nov 16 07:47:53 -0800 2008 2608265 169792 lgss 2 4178394 Yes, the Abenaki, Penobscot (passadumkeag means fast water), Passamaquoddy etc; huge clam middens dot the coast of Maine w/ the remnants of clams, lobster, crabs, and even sturgeon. Leave out the potatoes and the New England shore dinner is truely Native American. Honest Injun! Wasn't wampaum pierced sea shells. I enjoy the Franks, Native American Cooking: Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations ps The Pilgrims detested lobster! Sun Nov 16 15:50:17 -0800 2008 4177536 93538 Passadumkeg 1 4178221 FRYBREAD! You haven't lived until you've tried frybread. Chilis and stews are also common. For SW tribes they eat things like posole (not really like mexican kind), turnovers (meat filled), tortillas, beans, and lots of corn. Sun Nov 16 14:18:09 -0800 2008 2608265 227302 kirinraj 2 4178292 However one of those 'Spirit' episodes lists a different menu: "During a visit with the Tohono O'odham Tribe of Arizona, Loretta joins the tribe for their annual 3-day harvest of Saguaro Cactus fruit. She also joins Mildred Manuel to prepare Wild Spinach with Cholla Buds and Chiltepine Peppers, Tapary Beans with Ribs, Ash Bread (slow-cooked in the ashes of a mesquite fire), and for a sweet refreshing drink, Mesquite Juice." For some Native Americans, frybread is more of a 'death sentence', in that it is part of a diet that may be responsible for a high incidence of diabetes (along with a possible genetic predisposition). Sun Nov 16 14:58:45 -0800 2008 4178221 12139 paulj 3 4178324 True, but you have to admit that because of economic circumstances, frybread and other foods like it are an important part of many Indian diets. Many of the traditional dishes are only prepared on holidays or festival days. Modern indian diets have changed greatly since the late 1800's/early 1900's and foods such as wild rice are no longer widely eaten. Traditional tribes such as the Hopi, Pueblos, and some Navajos tend to stay closer to their roots. Diabetes and obesity are so widespread on reservations because of the low quality processed foods available and crappy government commodity foods. The Tohono O'odham and other southwestern tribes are still very traditional and that is why the menu listed is unique and traditional, similar to native mexican dishes. Sun Nov 16 15:10:20 -0800 2008 4178292 227302 kirinraj 4 4178374 "foods such as wild rice are no longer widely eaten." don't say that out loud-- i'd be afraid that winona la duke would ride in on a horse and kick yer butt! truly wild rice is increasingly protected, and is a major source of income for many individuals and tribes, who cooperatively harvest, roast and sell the rice, and also provide this staple ingredient to elderly and economically disadvantaged tribal members. wild rice and wild rice flour, along with other traditional foods, are actually going through a revival. yay! http://nativeharvest.com/node/6 Sun Nov 16 15:37:23 -0800 2008 4178324 46030 soupkitten 5 4178582 Really? I had no idea. I thought it was just the health food community. That's great news. Sun Nov 16 17:19:37 -0800 2008 4178374 227302 kirinraj 6 4179640 agree-- really wonderful! :) Mon Nov 17 07:12:50 -0800 2008 4178582 46030 soupkitten 3 4181941 Diabetes in the Native population (primarily with Nations which follow more 'modern' diets) is many times higher than the North American average (along with other things as well...). I know several medical experts who have devoted careers on the subject. I don't think its necessarily fry bread, nor any one food, nor any one type of prep. Genetic predisposition, perhaps more accurate, is but a small part of the larger picture. Native Americans ate a particular diet for perhaps 60 000 years (or 2400 generations). This has changed in the last 200 years and drastically so in the last 75 years (a measly 3 to 8 generations). Any wonder there's a correlation to high incidence of diabetes? As for modern-day Natives (I'm talking about southern Canada, and most of the continental USA), most diets, give or take, are similar to the average North American. Traditional meals are eaten on special occasions, or perhaps once a week or so. I know this is a generalization, but is along the lines of my experience. Mon Nov 17 20:37:43 -0800 2008 4178292 176627 porker 4 4182172 There might be a genetic predisposition... but that has come under question with the Pima Indian studies. Some researches learned that the Pimas of Arizona have huge problems with obesity and diabetes... yet their genetically identical (only 150 years removed) counterparts in Maycoba, Sonora have very low rates of diabetes & obesity. While there are some indications that diet contributes to the problems, as well as a gene that helps desert peoples avoid starvation during droughts... the main causal factor found.... excercise. The Pimas in Mexico are still very active in farming, hunting, ritual dancing... walking 5 to 8 miles a day in the rugged mountain terrain.. while their Arizona Reservation bretheren have no hunting grounds, have very little reason or motivation to farm, and don't have the resources to set up gyms & soccer fields in their place. Mon Nov 17 23:49:15 -0800 2008 4181941 42572 Eat_Nopal 5 4182379 Yeah, this makes sense - both diet and exercise. Or, I guess, another catchphrase would be lifestyle. Once again 2400 generations of a particular lifestyle changed 'overnight'...somethings gotta give. Tue Nov 18 05:26:14 -0800 2008 4182172 176627 porker 6 4183360 Thinking about it... diet does play an important role... the Kiliwa (I believe they are referred to as Apaches north of the border) in Baja.... exhibited a similar change in lifestyle after non-Indian land grabs in the 20th century turned them into day laborers etc., BUT for them diabetes & obesity are at normal levels... they aren't getting significant excercise (beyond what any blue collar worker anywhere might get)... but their diet is based heavily on Nopales and other desert cacti.... the magic plant (whose compounds are already being extracted for prescription only diabetic treatments) seems to be the main factor. Tue Nov 18 11:12:35 -0800 2008 4182379 42572 Eat_Nopal 1 4179023 It will be heavily dependent on the geographic location of the "Native Americans." The cuisine will differ, based on what is available where you are referring. Go to the Desert SW and it will differ from the Carolinas, and from Michigan. It's kinda' like Cajun cuisine. If the locale is on salt water, the fish will reflect that. If the water is fresh, or backish, then the fish will differ. Pork will often be used, as pigs thrived in the swampy surroundings, but cows did not. Throw in a 'possum, or other, and you start to get the idea. Same for "Native American." What was available? Hunt Sun Nov 16 21:15:26 -0800 2008 2608265 11329 Bill Hunt