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Have you ever tried Native American food?

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/31/15 3:43 pm**

I was thinking about this. Is there a place you can go and try the actual food the Indians ate before European colonization? I don't know an answer to that question, but after doing a bit of reading and viewing, I realize I've already eaten a lot of Indian food. I saw a video online of a Cherokee restaurant, and it had a lot of down-home cooking.

Apparently, Europeans did not have a lot of the beans we eat nowadays. Green beans and kidney beans are a New World crop. The Europeans didn't have lima beans either. Many beans are New World crops. They had fava beans, lintels, and several others.

Many Indian tribes lived primarily on 'the three sisters', corn, beans, and squash. Many squash varieties are from the New World. Corn (maize) is a New World crop.

Some of the Indian tribes, among the 'civilized tribes' in the eastern part of the US, like the Cherokee, farmed corn and ate a harder version of corn bread.

I am from the southeast and I grew up eating corn, green beans, corn bread, and we had some squash in our diet but it wasn't a major thing. Cucumbers are gourds and they are European, and we ate a lot of those.

My grandmother ate corn and beans out of her garden every day. The bacon grease in it is a European thing, since Europeans introduced the pig to the Americas. She ate corn bread a lot, too, a version of Indian food, you could say, along with biscuits made from European crops.

So I grew up eating a mix of Indian food and European food. Much of 'down home' cuisine is made from Indian food. Bell peppers and hot chili peppers are from the New World as well.

As far as how they actually cooked it in pre-colonial times, I don't know if we can know that for sure or not. Indians are known for eating fry bread, but I think that was a later development, like from when the Cherokee were given government supplies to eat on the Trail of Tears. It would be interesting to know if they did something similar with corn flower.
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Dan Eason

Alaska

Friendly Face Posts: 473 **12/31/15 5:05 pm**

I grew up in an area with a majority Athabaskan population. When they had traditional Native dishes, it seemed to be Moose Stew and smoked salmon strips. They probably have a million ways to prepare moose and salmon, but those two dishes were always present. You can travel to "Alaska-Land" in Fairbanks and participate in a traditional Native American salmon bake. There must be similar offerings in other parts of the country with Native American populations.
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Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/31/15 6:06 pm**

Dan Eason,

I'd imagine in those parts, there are some traditional native recipes. I don't know if the same is true of the Cherokee and other groups that had a bit more cultural influence from the Europeans. Spending time being shipped between reservations with European food items as supplies could influence cuisine.

It sounds like the food would be good. I like salmon, but I've never had moose. Does it taste like white tailed deer? What do they put in the moose stew besides moose?

Btw, if there are two of them, do we call them meese?
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Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **12/31/15 6:55 pm**

I have never thought about American Indian food too much. But I will now. We travel a lot and I like to eat the popular food in the area whether it be another state or country.

Funny while in Hawaii we went to a Luau The cooked the pig in the ground, we got to see them remove it and carried it off. The announcer said we would now be served a pig that was cooked inside and according to 'local health rules.' I was disappointed. Sad

I guess in the winter the Indian survived off dried meat or fresh meat and nuts, no veggies. Unless they were drying the veggies....

Good subject... Cool

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roughridercog

I've eaten dog

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **12/31/15 7:14 pm**

Seriously
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Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **12/31/15 8:52 pm**

From what I've eaten, Native American food is not all that great. There are several Mexican restaurants in most cities in the USA, but the only place I've seen 'authentic' Native American food was at little roadside stands near reservations. It's okay, but for my money, I much prefer the Euro-American mixture of Mexican food.

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Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/31/15 11:48 pm**

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 11:12 am**

I've lived where they lived. And, as a kid, pretended to be one. Finding a feather was cause to tie a band around my head and stick the feather in it. We used sticks and strings for bows and arrows and little homemade cloth knapsacks for quivers. We found their projectile points.
(these are some I found)

We tried most any wild plant we knew was edible (and possibly some that weren't).
I'm sure deer was an important food source for Native Americans who lived in this area. I've eaten deer. I've eaten quite a few hickory nuts and persimmons in my time (native plants). My understanding is that the Native Americans didn't try to pick out each tiny little nutmeat of the hickory nut, but just smashed a whole slew of the nuts, boiled them, nuts, meats, and all, and skimmed off the resultant nut butter that rose to the top of the pot.
I've eaten cattail and turkey pea and Saskatoon berries (which we called currants, a misnomer--other folks called them service berry or sarvisberry), wild blueberries, wild rose hips, black haw, and lots and lots of blackberries.
I've also mistakenly eaten wintergreen root thinking it was what Daddy told us was turkey pea. That definitely left an impression on me!
I've eaten acorns. I was relieved to know the Native Americans had figured out how to leach the tannins out of the acorns so they wouldn't taste so bitter. Acorns were probably a significant source of food for the Native Americans. They leached the acorns in streams, dried them, and pounded them into flour.
I think the Native Americans also used pine needles for tea which is high in vitamin C. I don't think I've ever tried that, but I'm sure I've tasted the needles and bark. Not particularly palatable, if you ask me. I've eaten the seeds that came out of the pine cone, the seed inside beggar lice, and Sunflower seeds. I've also eaten pigweed seeds, which is basically a type of amaranth.
I used to read a cartoon which always associated pemmican (dried meat ground up and mixed with fat and dried berries) with the Native Americans. I've also read that in some places pumpkins were grown more for their seeds than flesh. I'm sure the seeds are higher in calories which would have been seen as a positive thing. I've never had pemmican, but I have eaten pumpkin seeds.
Just last week, I had natural maple syrup that my brother had made (from sugar maples here in NC), though that was probably more common with the Native Americans in the Northeast. (And I've taken a lick of red maple sap straight from the tree.)
I'm thinking Native Americans were some lean and hungry folks.

famousflavius

Chickasaw's (L)

Golf Cart Mafia Soldier Posts: 2447 **1/1/16 11:28 am**

My Grandmother was Chickasaw and lived in Oklahoma. She was a great cook. You can see some of the recipes that the Chickasaws used. Here is one.

Fry Bread and Fried Pork (Paskawaalhaaki', Shokha' Nipi' Awaalhahli')
Fry bread is a delicious flour-based side dish. Dough is rolled into balls, then flattened out to about the size of an open hand and dropped into hot oil. Fry bread is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It is used as the base of the very popular Indian Taco, which can be experienced in the Aaimpa' Café at the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur.

Pigs were not native to the homelands but were introduced to Chickasaws by conquistador Hernando de Soto. After de Soto wore out his welcome, Chickasaws raided his camp under the cover of darkness and routed his troops. During the melee many pigs were captured by Chickasaw warriors and many simply escaped into the woods. Pork became a favorite dish.

Fry Bread Recipe:

2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup warm water or milk
Sift first three ingredients together and stir in beaten egg. Add water or milk to make soft dough. Round up on lightly floured cloth or bread board. Knead lightly. Roll or pat out 1/2 inch thick. Cut into strips about 2 x 3 inches and slit center. Drop into deep fat. Brown on both sides. Serve hot. Good with pinto beans, stew or syrup.

http://www.chickasaw.net/Our-Nation/Culture/Foods.aspx

Cojak

Link and chihuahuas

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **1/1/16 12:15 pm**

Imma thinking that that was a diet meat, since they are so little, the chihuahuas, that is.

I am enjoying this post Link. I knew Bonnie was a 'naturalist' I just didn't know how far that lady went. Lots of that stuff I did not know and most I have not eaten.

Also old FamousF shows a new side, I like that. the fry bread sounds good.

But to be honest the chihuahuas don't appeal to me, alive nor cooked.

RR said he ate dog, I hear it is good, but I was wondering whose dog he ate? Shocked

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Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **1/1/16 12:17 pm**

Now I do like that Southern COG native food, the HOT DOG! Smile

Normally served after YPE and prayer meetings by the LWWB! Cool

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bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 1:52 pm**

Famousflavius, your post reminds me of another native fruit that I've eaten--the Chickasaw plum. It is quite tart unless fully ripe, and then one side is still pretty tart. It's a small red plum with yellow inside.
Wikipedia says the Native Americans were cultivating this plum even before the arrival of Europeans.

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 2:17 pm**

I don't know why (if it's my computer or if it's Acts), but sometimes I will be mid-post, and suddenly I'm back on the previous page and my post is gone. Hitting the "back" button doesn't help. That's happened to me several times in the last few days.

Anyway, Cojak, I was saying (before my post disappeared) that my parents taught us some of the edibles, but a lot of the adventure came when my perpetually hungry older brother discovered Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus. That's when we tried the cattail and the pigweed seed, I think. I think that book also inspired him to boil a pot of acorns, but I think we had already tried them just playing around outside. The small orange acorns from a red oak look like they ought to taste a sight better than they actually do.

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 2:24 pm**

Another native berry we ate was vaccinium arboreum.
We called it hackyberry--perhaps that came from the name hackberry which is a different tree in the old country, but the common name listed is sparkleberry. It is a native plant with a dry, black colored berry that clings onto the bush well into the fall. In fact, we thought a frost improved the flavor.

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Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **1/1/16 3:40 pm**

This is an interesting thread. Bonnie's post was particularly interesting. Going around eating all that stuff in the woods sounds like a lot of fun for children if someone is there to teach them how to identify the plants. My mom was always telling us not to try berries because they could be poison. We did eat some snake berries that neighbor children ate that grew in the yard in one place we lived. I also ate sour grass when I was with my cousin who used to like to get a bite of that. Sour grass tastes pretty good. I don't know that a lot of it would be good for you because of some of the components of it. But it would probably make a wild salad interesting.

I don't think I mentioned it, but a lot of us enjoy beef jerky. Jerky is a native food as well. I've tried buffalo jerky before. I suspect even our jerky is a bit different if it uses black pepper from Asia and varieties of onions from Europe.

It sounds like American cuisine uses a lot of the cultivated plants from the Native Americans like corn, beans, and various squashes, but not all those interesting that Bonnie mentioned. There are a lot of food sources your typical American doesn't exploit and that aren't grown commercially. A lot of people have acorns in their yard. I've heard of Koreans serving acorn flour noodles before. I think I saw Hugh Jackman cooking some Korean acorn flour noodles on TV. Apparently, Korean cooking is a hobby of his. He was on the Korean station which is actually on free TV here in Honolulu once. I wonder what the Indians did with the flour.

The tanic acid from acorns can be used to tan deer hides, too.

I read the Native Americans used to use that layer right underneath the pine bark as an emergency food if the corn crops did poorly. Cattails weren't cultivated because they were so plentiful in the wild. Different parts of it are edible. I've never tried it. I was in Hawaii when I found this out. But the roots store up starch for the winter, so if you harvest during certain times late in the year, you can clean the roots, break up the roots by hammering them, and soak them. A kind of starch comes out that you can cook. You could make some crackers or use it as a soup thickener. There is also a crunchy stalk and the heads are edible at certain times of the year.

I've heard that you can smash up pine needles and make a tea out of them from bushcraft or survivalist sources. There aren't a lot of them here. Those who are not outdoorsy at all have to make sure the tree is a pine and not some other evergreen. I wonder what the tea would taste like. I'm imagining with sugar tasting like spearmint gum, but that may be wishful thinking.

I suspect just in terms of plant varieties, American food is more interesting that European food used to be. I grew up eating green beans. I just read recently that green bean leaves are actually edible. It's funny that you can grow up eating a plant and not know you can eat the leaves. My wife was talking to someone from Vietnam a while back who was surprised that Indonesians eat casava leaves. That's one of the most popular sources of greens in Indonesia, at least in the Padang cuisine. They are kind of a course green, and the Padang cook them up with coconut milk and certain kinds of spices.. But the Vietnamese don't even eat them.

If you live on the coast, I hear that just about any variety of sea weed that grows in the shallows, you can eat, but not all the stuff that washes up from the deeper waters. That could have been true in the region of the person who said it, though. I don't know if there were Native American tribes who ate seaweed or not.

As far as the lifestyle of the Native Americans go, there were 'civilized tribes' in the eastern part of the US that had treaties with one another. They grew corn and other crops. There were some kings in these tribes. Apparently, the tribes the English had encountered had re-grouped and reorganized. There had been civilizations with greater population and maybe even more population before de Soto and his men introduced European diseases a hundred years or more before the English came over.

The plains tribes were more hunter type, probably more what most Americans (USoinians) think of when we talk about Indians.

The Mejico/Aztecs may have had the largest city in the world before the Europeans got there, but on growing corn and other crops. I don't know about the Aztecs, but the Maya who had been the top tribe before them had a complicated system of writing. There is kind of a 'dark legend' about how bad the Spanish were, but I wonder if someone out there cried out to the most high God over the wickedness of the Aztecs, who conquered people and sacrificed them to demons and ate their flesh. I've read that the Maya also had some similar wicked practices. I wonder if the Spanish were the answer to prayer or if the Lord just smelled the stench of some of the practices of their civilization and sent the Spanish to wipe out some aspects of it and give their descendants a better civilization to live in. For the survivors of the diseases, I suspect their society was a better one under the Spanish.
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bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 4:14 pm**

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Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **1/1/16 4:24 pm**

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 4:34 pm**

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/1/16 4:37 pm**

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **1/1/16 8:32 pm**

Now you have me thinking about a delicious nut. easy to peel and on a low bush (tastes sorta like a cashew) They were not plentiful, but I found them around Valdese (South mountains) and on the COG CG at Charlotte.
We cannot think of the name.

Hickory nuts (Hickernuts) are the best, but no fun to harvest.

Are sweet potatoes native to the USA?

In the Caribbean Islands I learned quick Yams are not Sweet potatoes, and Plantains ain't bananas. Shocked

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Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
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