Native American cuisine includes all food practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Information about Native American cuisine comes from a great variety of sources. Modern-day native peoples retain a rich body of traditional foods, some of which have become iconic of present-day Native American social gatherings (for example, frybread). Foods like cornbread, turkey, cranberry, blueberry, hominy and mush are known to have been adopted into the cuisine of the United States from Native American groups. In other cases, documents from the early periods of contact with European, African, and Asian peoples allow the recovery of food practices which passed out of popularity.
Modern-day Native American cuisine can cover as wide of range as the imagination of the chef who adopts or adapts this cuisine to present.[1] The use of indigenous domesticated and wild food ingredients can represent Native American food and cuisine.[2] North American Native Cuisine can differ somewhat from Southwestern and Mexican Cuisine in its simplicity and directness of flavor. The use of ramps, wild ginger, miners' lettuce, and juniper can impart subtle flavours to various dishes. Native American food is not a historic subject but one of living flavours and ideas. A chef preparing a Native American dish can adopt, create, and alter as his or her imagination dictates.[3]
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Native American cuisine of North America
American Indians of the Eastern Woodlands planted what was known as the "Three Sisters": corn, beans, and squash. In addition, a number of other domesticated crops were popular during some time periods in the Eastern Woodlands, including a local version of quinoa, a variety of amaranth, sumpweed/marsh elder, little barley, maygrass, and sunflower.
In the Northwestern part of what is now the United States Native Americans used salmon and other fish, seafood, mushrooms, and berries, among other foods also lots of meat such as deer, duck,rabbits and they loved to drink rum which was introduced by Chistopher Columbus.[4] They were hunter-gatherers, not needing agriculture to supplement the abundant food supplies of their habitat. In what is now California, acorns were ground into flour, the main food for about 75 per cent of the population,[5] and dried meats were prepared during the season when drying was possible.[6]
Southeastern Native American cuisine
Southern Native American culture is the "cornerstone" of Southern cuisine. From their culture came one of the main staples of the Southern diet: corn (maize), either ground into meal or limed with an alkaline salt to make hominy, also called masa, in a Native American technology known as nixtamalization.[7] Corn was used to make all kinds of dishes from the familiar cornbread and grits to liquors such as whiskey, which were important trade items.
Though a lesser staple, potatoes were also adopted from Native American cuisine and were used in many similar ways as corn.
Native Americans introduced the first Southerners to many other vegetables still familiar on southern tables. Squash, pumpkin, many types of beans, tomatoes (though these were initially considered poisonous), many types of peppers and sassafras all came to the settlers via the native tribes.
Many fruits are available in this region. Muscadines, blackberries, raspberries, and many other wild berries were part of Southern Native Americans' diet.
| “ | To a far greater degree than anyone realizes, several of the most important food dishes of the Southeastern Indians live on today in the "soul food" eaten by both black and white Southerners. Hominy, for example, is still eaten ... Sofkee live on as grits ... cornbread [is] used by Southern cooks ... Indian fritters ... variously known as "hoe cake," ... or "Johnny cake." ... Indians boiled cornbread is present in Southern cuisine as "corn meal dumplings," ... and as "hush puppies," ... Southerns cook their beans and field peas by boiling them, as did the Indians ... like the Indians they cure their meat and smoke it over hickory coals. | ” |
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—- Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians.[8] |
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Southern Native Americans also supplemented their diets with meats derived from the hunting of native game. Venison was an important meat staple due to the abundance of white-tailed deer in the area. They also hunted rabbits, squirrels, opossums, and raccoons. Livestock, adopted from Europeans, in the form of hogs and cattle were kept. When game or livestock was killed, the entire animal was used. Aside from the meat, it was not uncommon for them to eat organ meats such as liver, brains and intestines. This tradition remains today in hallmark dishes like chitterlings (commonly called chit’lins) which are fried large intestines of hogs, livermush (a common dish in the Carolinas made from hog liver), and pork brains and eggs. The fat of the animals, particularly hogs, was rendered and used for cooking and frying. Many of the early settlers were taught Southern Native American cooking methods.
Dishes
- Corn bread
- Nokake, Algonquin hoecakes
- Fry bread is a dish made from ingredients distributed to Native Americans living on reservations.
- Bean bread, made with corn meal and beans; popular among the Cherokee
- Black drink, or asi, a Southeastern ceremonial drink made from the Yaupon Holly
- Succotash, a trio of lima beans, tomatoes and corn
- Pemmican, a concentrated food consisting of dried pulverized meat, dried berries, and rendered fat
- Psindamoakan, a Lenape hunter's food made of parched cornmeal mixed with maple sugar
- Bird brain stew, from the Cree tribe [1]
- Buffalo stew, from the Lakota also called Tanka-me-a-lo [2]
- Acorn mush, from the Miwok people [3]
- Wojape, a Plains Indian pudding of mashed, cooked berries
- Dry meats Jerky, smoked Salmon strips
- Piki bread Hopi
- Green chili stew
- Mutton stew Navajo
- Pueblo bread
- Walrus Flipper Soup, Inuit dish made from walrus flippers.
- Stink Fish, Inuit dish, of dried fish, underground, until nice & ripe then eaten for later consumption, also done with fish heads.
- Salted Salmon Inuit dish, brined salmon in a heavy concentration of salt water left for months to soak up salts.
- Akutaq, also called "Eskimo Ice Cream", made from caribou or moose tallow and meat, berries, seal oil, and sometimes fish, whipped together with snow or water.
Native American cuisine of the Circum-Caribbean
This region comprises the cultures of the Arawaks, the Caribs, and the Ciboney. The Taíno of the Greater Antilles were the first New World people to encounter Columbus. Prior to European contact, these groups foraged, hunted, fished. The Taíno cultivated cassava, sweet potato, maize, beans, squash, pineapple, peanuts, and peppers. Today these groups have mostly vanished, but their culinary legacy lives on.
- Jerk, a style of cooking meat that originated with the Taíno of Jamaica. Meat was applied with a dry rub of allspice, Scotch bonnet pepper, and perhaps additional spices, before being smoked over fire or wood charcoal.
- Casabe, a flatbread made from yuca root widespread in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean and Amazonia.
- Guanime, a Puerto Rican food similar to the tamale.
- Funche or fungi, a corn mush traditional to Puerto Rico.
Native American cuisine of Mesoamerica
The pre-conquest cuisine of the Native Americans of Mesoamerica made a major contribution to shaping modern-day Mexican cuisine. The cultures involved included the Aztec, Maya, Olmec, and many more (see the List of pre-Columbian civilizations).
Some known dishes
- Tacos
- Tamales
- Tlacoyos (gordita)
- Pozole
- Mole
- Guacamole
- Salsa
- Mezcal
- Tortillas
- Champurrado, a chocolate drink [4]
- Xocolātl
- Pejelagarto, a fish with an alligator-like head seasoned with the amashito chile and lime [5]
- Pulque or octli, an alcoholic beverage of fermented maguey juice
- Tepache, pineapple beer
- Chili
- Pupusas, thick cornmeal flatbread from the Pipil culture of El Salvador
- Alegría, a candy made from puffed amaranth and boiled-down honey or maguey sap, in ancient times formed into the shapes of Aztec gods
- Balché, Mayan fermented honey drink
Native American cuisine of South America
Andean cultures
This currently includes recipes known from the Quechua, Aymara and Nazca of the Andes.
- Grilled guinea pig, a native to most of the Andes region this small rodent has been culivated for at least 4000 years
- Fried green tomatoes, a nightshade relative native to Peru
- Saraiaka, a corn liquor [6].
- Chicha, a generic name for any number of indigenous beers found in South America. Though chichas made from various types of corn are the most common in the Andes, chicha in the Amazon Basin frequently use manioc. Variations found throughout the continent can be based on amaranth, quinoa, peanut, potato, coca, and many other ingredients.
- Chicha morada, a Peruvian, sweet, unfermented drink made from purple corn, fruits, and spices.
- Colada morada, a thickened, spiced fruit drink based on the Andean blackberry, traditional to the Day of the Dead ceremonies held in Ecuador. It is typically served with guagua de pan, a bread shaped like a swaddled infant (formerly made from cornmeal in Pre-Columbian times), though other shapes can be found in various regions.
- Quinoa Porridge
- Ch'arki, a type of dried meat
- Humitas, similar to modern-day Tamales, a thick mixture of corn, herbs and onion, cooked in a corn-leaf wrapping. The name is modern, meaning bow-tie, because of the shape in which it's wrapped.
- Mate de coca
- Pachamanca, stew cooked in a hautía oven
- Pataska, spicy stew made from boiled maize, potatoes, and dried meat.
- Ceviche, marinated in acidic tumbo juice in Pre-Columbian times
- Cancha or tostada, fried golden hominy
- Llajwa, salsa of Bolivia
- Llapingachos, mashed-potato cakes from Ecuador
Other South American cultures
- Angu, an indigenous Brazilian type of corn mush
- Arepa, a maize-based bread originating from the indigenous peoples of Colombia and Venezuela
- Cauim, a fermented beverage based on maize or manioc broken down by the enzymes of human saliva, traditional to the Tupinambá and other indigenous peoples of Brazil
- Curanto, a Chilean stew cooked in an earthen oven originally from the Chono people of Chiloé Island
- Lapacho or taheebo, a medicinal tree bark infusion
- Merken, a ají powder from the Mapuche of Patagonia
- Pira caldo, Paraguayan fish soup
- Chipa, a corn flour or manioc-based bread traditional to Paraguay
- Yerba mate, a tea made from the holly of the same name, derived from Guaraní
Cooking utensils
The earliest utensils, including knives, spoons, grinders, and griddles, were made from all kinds of organic materials, such as rock and animal bone. Gourds were also initially cultivated, hollowed, and dried to be used as bowls, spoons, ladels, and storage containers. Many Native American cultures also developed elaborate weaving and pottery traditions for making bowls, cooking pots, and containers. Nobility in the Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations were even known to have utensils and vessels smelted from gold, silver, copper, or other minerals.
- Molinillo, a device used by Mesoamerican royalty for frothing cacao drinks
- Metate, a stone grinding slab used with a stone mano to process meal in Mesoamerica and one of the most notable Pre-Columbian artifacts in Costa Rica
- Molcajete, a basalt stone bowl, used with a tejolote to grind ingredients as a Mesoamerican form of mortar and pestle
- Batan, an Andean grinding slab used in conjunction with a small stone uña
- Paila, an Andean earthenware bowl
- Cuia, a gourd used for drinking mate in South America
- Comal, a griddle used since Pre-Columbian times in Mexico and Central America for a variety of purposes, especially to cook tortillas
- Burén, a clay griddle used by the Taíno
Crops and ingredients
Maize, beans and squash were known as the three sisters for their symbiotic relationship when grown together by the North American and Meso-American natives. If the South Americans had similar methods of what is known as companion planting it is lost to us today.
Non-animal foodstuffs
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Hunted or livestock
- Antelope
- Badger
- Bear
- Beaver
- Bighorn sheep
- Bison - Originally found throughout most of North America
- Burro - from Europe
- Camel - extinct
- Cattle - important European import
- Chipmunk
- Deer
- Dove
- Duck
- Elk
- Geese
- Ground hog
- Grouse
- Guanaco - Hunted in South America by hunter-gatherer societies, for ex. in Patagonia until the 19th century.
- Guinea pig - Domesticated in the Andes
- Hog - important European import
- Honey wasp - Brachygastra mellifica, Brachygastra lecheguana, and Polybia occidentalis, a source of honey found from the Southwestern United States to Argentina
- Horse - Although imported by Europeans, the horse was still very important to Native American cultures throughout the Americas (although famously on the North American Plains) in the historic era
- Hutia
- Iguana
- Livestock
- Llama - Domesticated in the Andes
- Locust (cicada)
- Manatee
- Mastodon - extinct
- Moose
- Mountain lion
- Mourning dove
- Mule
- Muscovy duck - Domesticated in Mesoamerica
- Opossum
- Otter
- Passenger Pigeon - extinct
- Peccaries
- Pheasant
- Porcupine
- Prairie dog
- Pronghorns (antelope)
- Quail
- Rabbit
- Sheep - important European import
- Skunk
- Sloth
- Stingless bee - Melipona beecheii and M. yucatanica, Mayan source of honey
- Squirrel
- Turkey
- Turtle
- Wood rat
- Woolly mammoth - extinct
References
- ^ http://www.nativeculinary.com/forum/index.php
- ^ http://www.nativetech.org/recipes/index.php
- ^ http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes/native-american
- ^ http://www.mle.matsuk12.us/american-natives/nw/nw.html
- ^ http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/NAIFood/acorns.htm
- ^ http://www.jerkyfaq.com/jerky/information/the-history-of-jerky.html
- ^ Dragonwagon, Crescent (2007). The Cornbread Gospels. Workman Publishing. ISBN 0-7611-1916-7.
- ^ Hudson, Charles. "A Conquered People". The Southeastern Indians. The University of Tennessee Press. p. 498-499. ISBN 0-87049-248-9.
See also
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Foods and ingredients of the indigenous people |
Bibliography
Niethammer, Carolyn. American Indian Food and Lore. New York: A Simon & Schuster Macmillan Company, 1974. ISBN 0-02-010000-0
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