Native American Food

[siksikaboy]

Any chefs/cooks have Native American recipes or adaptations?

[Fincher]

Welcome to Chef2Chef Jim, nice site by the way, I checked it out earlier today.

I have some Appalachian recipes that are adapted from Indian and European cooking.

[siksikaboy]

would be interested in any that have direct relationship to native cooking..can you either post or email them

[bjcotton]

Welcome Jim. We had a member some time ago collecting native recipes. I believe his C2C name is mikyart (could be wrong). I think I have a recipe or two somewhere around here. I'll look and let you know.

I was wrong, his name is Mikyart. If you see him, ask him about it, or PM him.

[siksikaboy]

Fillet of Trout with Pine Nuts and Ramps

1 1/2 tablespoons pine nuts
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ramps or leeks
2 pcs 6 ounce trout fillets
seasoned blue cornmeal for dredging
lemon wedges

In a non-stick skillet saute pine nuts in 1 tablespoon of butter over moderately high heat, stirring, until golden. Add ramps or leeks.. Remove skillet from heat and transfer mixture with slotted spoon to a bowl. Season trout with salt and pepper and dredge in corn meal, shaking off excess. In the skillet heat remaining tablespoon of butter over moderately high heat until foam subsides and saute trout until done, about 1 minute on each side. Transfer trout to plates and spoon pine nut mixture over it. Serve with lemon wedges

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[MGerdes]

I don't have any recipes, but was recently treated to a taste of raw mesquite pod meal and a cookie made from the meal at a botanical gardens here in Phoenix. The meal itself was very flavorful and slightly sweet. Here is a link I found with some information. The pods were widely used as a foodsource here in the Southwest, so you may be able to track down some native recipes.
http://www.bensoncity.com/content.asp?ContentId=705

[Silvercliff_46]

Your right Billy, Mikyart was around the other day on the board. I don't remember where I saw him. He had some good game recipes too. Look them up in the search.

[Rouxfy]

Welcome to the Forums, SikSik!
This topic was covered last year, here's a link to the discussion.

Native American Recipes.....

[dalejackson]

well native american food is kinda a natura around here, liveing in tahlequah oklahoma,(cherokee county) they have the big pow-wow here every year and thousands of native americans come here from across the nation. my wife takes me to it every year and i have a few recipies that i have gotten from her grandmother, if u would like i could drag them up and post them. but all in all their pretty simple.

[Fincher]

Dale,
Post them in Chef2Chef's "share a recipe" section,! I'd love to see them.

Yes some of the recipes I have are simple, and some although simple are time consuming. Such as the recipe that calls for using a hollowed out tree full of oak ashes, pouring water through it several times, etc.. etc..

[slick4591]

Here's another resource for you:

http://www.nativeculinary.com/forum/index.php

[Silvercliff_46]

I got away with this once without too many tee hee's so I tell you what. A Native American treat, is beaver. I have had a lot of beaver meat usually roasted just like a beef roast or ground into burger and used in multiple ways, and it was delicious. I live among several reservations in my area. Most of the food that I have had is pretty straight forward, simply made and as good as the cook who makes it. A lot of game and fish native to the area and of course fry bread, Indian tacos etc.

Mostly, all you need is a mind open enough to try any and all game, muskrat, beaver, groundhog, suckers, assorted critters, wild plants, and a host of other things like various innerds unfamiliar to urban and even most country dwellers.

Here is recipe I have made and enjoyed more the once.

1) Trap or otherwise kill a muskrat.
2) skun it
3) gut it
4) Section it (2 front legs, 2 back legs with thighs and the back)
5) wash it all clean in the creek
6) salt and pepper (a little celery salt or seed is good if you got it.)
7) dredge in flour
fry in bacon grease til done.

Serve with mashed cattail root, and boiled dandelion greens, both of which are better with some of the bacon grease spilled on them. If the raspberries or black berries are ripe, have them for dessert.

Note: Use a key hole fire when you cook, as you can control your cooking fire better. Make sure you put it out when your done or Smokey and/or some local Native American will kick your @$$.

[Fincher]

I noticed people making fun of recipes in the older thread that contained items like pineapple etc.. Yes they may not be what Indians of yore made, but the people aren't extinct folks.

I know the native Americans on the reservation near my hometown still had thier own style of cooking that had roots in the old school of Indian cooking, but they also adapted new ingredients. They used alot of wild game still, but they have things called stoves and refrigerators. Is there a cutoff point where recipes can't be traditional anymore? I mean if they have used canned pineapple on this reservation since 1939 isn't it now a tradition?

[Napoleon]

Amen Fincher, Amen. Native American cuisine I am sure has evolved just like any other cuisine over the past century. It has always been my belief that today's "Southwest Cuisine" is rooted more from the Native American side, with a combination of Early Settlers/Traders and Mexican influences. My 0.02

JJW

[siksikaboy]

Native American cuisine covers a wide area of time up to the present. It is not a just a history lesson. What is the basis of Mexican food? The Spanards did not bring corn, chilis, tomoatoes. tomatillo, chocolate, beans and potato. They found them here being used by the Native Americans. As for pineapple, it was grown and eaten by natives of South America long before the white men ever saw one.Native Americans planted hundreds of acres of apple and peach orchards in the early 1700's, is their apple and peach pies any less theirs than the poatoes in Irish stew, Irish?