What exactly is Native American Food?
by Dale Carson, Indian Country Today
 

As a Native American who writes about and also does presentations on indigenous foods, people often ask me, "What exactly is Native American food?" as though it were an exotic, ethnic secret. 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. They are generally unconvinced, so I ask them what they had for dinner the night before. "Well, let’s see, we had mashed potatoes, grilled salmon, green beans, corn and chocolate pudding for dessert."

All of these items are traditional Native American foods that have become part of our shared national cupboard. There are two distinct ways of describing and preparing Native American food and cooking. One is the traditional approach, the way dishes were made historically, using indigenous ingredients and, whenever possible, original cooking techniques. The other method, the one people follow most often, is adapting Native recipes and foods to modern influences in terms of which food items are used and how they are processed and cooked.

For me the traditional way is the most important: following specific recipes that have been passed down by word of mouth through countless generations. These are "tribal classics" containing purely indigenous ingredients that are prepared much the same way they were decades and centuries ago. These dishes have stood the test of time. Each tribal nation, and often smaller communities within a nation, boasts its own local specialty. Hopi blue cornbread, Narragansett clam chowder and Ojibwa wild rice dishes are good examples. There are hundreds of these time-honored foods that are still here to savor, to learn about and treasure.

Many of these traditional recipes should be prepared as they have been in the past to be authentic and for best results: food items like stone-ground and hand-formed tortillas, maple syrup gathered and processed in the old proven methods, and salmon planked and seasoned just so. While some of these ancestral recipes have been adapted to modern tastes and methods--and this is a good thing--I recommend trying the traditional preparation as well. It is fun and it tastes so good.
While the Europeans took Native American foods and seeds to other parts of the world, I still consider these transplants to be Native foods: crops like maize, potatoes, wild rice, amaranth, tomatoes, cacao, peppers and so many more. These Native agricultural products now feed millions. They also generate billions of dollars in world trade each year. It is estimated that three-quarters of the world’s foods originated in either North or South America. 

The other way of looking at Native American foods and cooking is by ingredients, influences and time period. Native people are still here, still cooking, still creating. The Europeans brought new crops and a distinct food culture to these shores that includes dairy producing and other farm animals, wheat, oats, rice, cabbage and more. The mingling of these immigrant and Native food cultures has resulted in many new and wonderful food delights. One of our favorite Native foods, which has become part of our tradition in the past 100 years or so, is frybread. Although it is made with white wheat flour, what could be more traditional than frybread?

For many years I have done outdoor cooking demonstrations using pre-contact and post-contact cooking methods and utensils. I also have done many talks at schools, libraries and museums. Children are so innocent and sweet. They never fail to be interested when I tell them that chocolate, vanilla, peanuts, potatoes, pumpkins, corn, peppers, turkey, cranberries, and about a hundred other favorites of theirs originated on these two continents. They love it, too, when I tell them that a Mohawk man, one George Crum, invented the potato chip, or that the most popular snack in America right now is salsa, the indigenous hors d’oeuvre that contains tomatoes and peppers.

It would be a wonderful thing if the broad contributions of Native American foods and cooking to our modern food culture were better understood. Some foods are now so integrated that their origin is blurred. For example, popular items like Boston baked beans and New England clam chowder historically derived from the Native cupboard. What would pizza without the tomato, or French fries without the potato, Halloween with no pumpkins, desert without chocolate or vanilla flavoring?

As traditional stewards of Mother Earth, Native peoples are proud to have helped to extend her food bounty to the world.