Native American Food Ingredients
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From Native Soil — American Indian Ingredients Are Ingrained in the Country's Cuisine
Restaurants USA magazine's final issue was published in September 2002 but these archived articles remain available for our readers' convenience.
Restaurants USA, October 1999
The influence of Native American cuisine stretches from the plains of North Dakota to the shores of New England. Tracing the rich history of Native American cuisine is proving to be a surprising and inspiring undertaking for many chefs.
By Madeleine Burka
In the 1800s, European settlers provided members of the Navajo Nation with something those early Americans had never seen before—wheat flour. To the Native Americans, who had been accustomed to using cornmeal as a grain, the fine powdery substance was completely foreign. They had no ovens, but the Europeans gave them cast-iron skillets. The Navajos added water to the flour to make a dough and then fried the mixture in the cast-iron skillets. Thus, fry bread was born.
Since Native Americans made their homes—and now reside—all across the United States, their influence has spread all over the culinary map, from the spicy chili of the Southwest to the clambakes of New England. And Native American recipes, cooking methods and ingredients are appearing in a range of restaurants, from the most relaxed Mexican eateries to fine-dining establishments.
Native origins
Native American culinary traditions run deep in America’s kitchens and restaurants. “Many non-Indians don’t understand that many foods such as tomatoes and peppers—and not just corn—are native foods in origin,” says Mikki Aganstata, a Cherokee Indian who co-owns Native American Cuisine, a Hartford, Connecticut, catering company.
Mexican restaurants have been steadily growing in popularity for years, and the Southwestern and Mexican cuisine of the United States is derived—at least in part—from Native American traditions, says Aganstata. According to National Restaurant Association research, traffic at midscale Mexican restaurants increased 4 to 6 percent a year between 1996 and 1998. At casual Mexican dining establishments, traffic increased 3 to 11 percent per year in the same period.
Ninety-six percent of what we eat today comes from the American Indian, says Cherokee Indian and chef Richard Brisson. The pine nuts that are sprinkled on pasta or are used to make pesto sauce, for example, were first grown by Native Americans, although most people believe they are an Italian delicacy, says Mark Miller, who is the owner of Coyote Cafe restaurants in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Las Vegas, and also an anthropologist.
Deep roots
The colorful legends behind Native American cuisine are as varied as the tribes themselves and their respective cuisines. To the Native Americans, corn is more than just a starchy yellow vegetable. It is the essence of life. Since corn sustained them thousands of years ago when there was little else to eat, they view it as a sacred source of nourishment. Similarly, in the past, buffalo were far more than just a source of meat. Those animals served as spiritual intermediaries, through which the Great Spirit could be addressed and often spoke. Deer, too, are sacred to Native Americans, says Debra Haaland, a Pueblo Indian from New Mexico. Growing up in Jewett City, Connecticut, Brisson remembers watching his grandmother pound slices of fresh deer meat with corn and then roll and saute the whole concoction. When Indians dried meat in order to preserve it, the meat closest to the bone would be set aside and added to large pots of stew, says Haaland. Neighbors spread the “blessing of the deer” by inviting people from all over their village to have a bowl of stew. The deer’s sacred status lent mystical significance to the meal, she adds. According to Linda Beaulieu, assistant director of public relations at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, there are five distinct areas of the country where the Native American foods and recipes we use today originated: the East, the Southwest, the Plains, the Northwest and the South. Here’s a look at some of the culinary influences on today’s cuisine that have come from Native Americans in each region.
Eastern shores
In the East, the Narragansett, Penobscot and Iroquois Indians steamed their dinners in earthen pits, creating the first clambakes and the now-familiar “Boston Baked Beans,” says Beaulieu.
Clambakes are as much a symbol of New England as cold winters and saltbox-style homes. According to Leighton’s Catering Service Inc. of South Weymouth, Massachusetts, clambakes originated even before the American Indians. Although no one knows exactly when the distinctively East Coast feasts started, they were an established tradition when the first Pilgrims landed.
Carl Flipp, a former owner of Leighton’s who now serves as a consultant for the company, says the original clambake method used by Leighton’s was practiced by the Abenakis Indians of New England. The method involved digging a hole, lining it with field stones, burning hardwood in the hole and covering it with wet seaweed. The food would be placed on top and the hole would be covered with canvas. The wet seaweed created the steam that cooked the food, explains Flipp.
For the past 10 years, Leighton’s has used propane burners instead of heated stones and large aluminum pans filled with water instead of seaweed for the clambakes it caters for customers. The taste of the food is the same, but the method is safer, and more environmentally sound because it emits less smoke and fumes, says Flipp.
The spicy Southwest
The Pueblo, Papago, Navajo and Hopi Indians of the Southwest grew peppers and beans, which they used as ingredients in chili, soups, salads, guacamole and barbecue sauces, according to Beaulieu.
Tortillas filled with meat and vegetables were a traditional Navajo dish as well as a Mexican one, says Aganstata. The Navajos often used beans and were also very fond of peppers, onions, tomatoes and hot sauces, she says.
Debra Haaland sells homemade red-chili sauce, green-chili salsa and hot sauce from her home in Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico. The rich flavor of her red-chili sauce is created by roasting the peppers after they’ve been dried, she says. Common among the diets of her fellow Pueblo Indians, she adds, are stews with meat or green chili and thick blue-corn tortillas.
At the Fry Bread House in Phoenix, owner Cecelia Miller, a Native American from the Tohono O’Dham tribe, serves “Fry Bread Tacos” and “Red and Green Chili” with fry bread on the side. For customers who don’t like spicy chilis, the restaurant also serves beef stew with fry bread on the side. “The way I cook things here is the way I learned from my mother growing up on the reservation,” says Miller. Locals and tourists have embraced the seven-year-old restaurant. Authentic Native American cuisine could once be found only locally at the Arizona State Fair in November. “The way we’ve been received in Phoenix has really been good,” she says. “And people are just amazed that we have [Native American fare] year-round.”
The vast Plains
In the Plains region, the Dakota and Cheyenne Indians roasted buffalo, says Beaulieu. One of the most visible aspects of Native American cuisine today is wild game, particularly buffalo, says Mark Miller of Coyote Cafe. “It’s become a very upscale meat, and it’s accepted by the general public as being a little less ‘gamey’ than venison.” Miller serves buffalo chorizos (sausages), stews and tacos as well as buffalo loins and rib-eye steaks at Coyote Cafe.
Buffalo meat is also gaining a wider following via the menu of a growing national chain. On the Border restaurants have been selling buffalo-meat fajitas since 1995. The restaurant chain, owned by Dallas-based Brinker International, was the first to do so nationally, says company spokesman Randy Hargrove. The decision to include buffalo-meat fajitas on the menu was based on the chain’s desire to offer more variety and nutritional choices. Buffalo meat, which is low in cholesterol and fat and high in protein, seemed to be a good choice, he explains.
The lush Northwest
The Tlingit, Kwatiutl and Salish tribes from the Northwest steamed, broiled and simmered seafood from the Pacific Ocean. Chef Kerry Sear, who recently opened the Cascadia restaurant in Seattle with his wife, Heidi Grathwol, has incorporated Native American cooking techniques into his eclectic menu showcasing ingredients that are indigenous to the Northwest.
In addition to an a la carte menu, Sear offers four fixed menus, one of which is called “Wild and Gathered.” Sear says he has noticed a renewed interest in “wild” foods lately, which harks back to the Native American lifestyle of hunting and gathering. “Chefs are always looking for new things,” he says.
Sear also has employees who forage in local forests for wild herbs and vegetables to give customers a chance to sample some more unusual flavors that were extensively explored by the first Americans but are largely unknown to today’s diners. For example, Sear puts a vegetable called chickweed—an earthy-tasting vegetable with a texture similar to cucumbers’—in his salads. He also takes advantage of cooking techniques like cooking fish on rocks, baking poultry wrapped inside tree leaves and using cedar to infuse food with flavor—all of which are popular practices among the Native Americans of the Northwest, such as the Salish. Sear’s “Wild Grass and Herb-Baked Partridge With Blackberry Reduction” is wrapped in grass before it is cooked. “It’s kind of a version of what the French do with cooking in a paper bag,” he says. “It creates a vessel to actually steam and roast the birds, and it picks up the flavor.”
Southern hospitality
The Southern Powhatan and Cherokee tribes were known for soups, stews and cornbreads. According to the Virginia Indians site in the James Madison University Internet School Library, the women of the Powhatan Indians prepared a food called rockahominy, which we call hominy. The women first boiled the corn kernels and next dried them in hot ashes, a process called parching. They then sifted and pounded the parched corn into a flour. The men carried the cornmeal with them when they went on long journeys. They would also add some water to the cornmeal, creating a mixture similar to grits—which has been appearing on more and more restaurant menus.
One restaurant that features many Native-American ingredients is the seven-year-old South City Kitchen in Atlanta. Among its menu offerings are “Chorizo Dumplings in Sweet Corn Callalou,” “Chicken Posole With Grilled Corn and Chili Peppers” and “Sauteed Shrimp and Scallops Over Creamy Stone-Ground Grits With Garlic Gravy.”
“We try to focus on traditional Southern ingredients in contemporary recipes, and corn is just a main staple down here,” says Assistant Manager Jim Endicott. “It’s easy to grow. You find it everywhere. I’m certain that we didn’t [intentionally] draw from any Native American cooking styles, though I’m sure indirectly we did.”
Grits and other foods popular among American Indians of the South are also staples at Georgia Brown’s restaurant in Washington DC. One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is “Carolina Shrimp and Grits,” which includes sauteed andouille sausage, shallots, shrimp, garlic and scallions served over a large plate of grits, says Special Events Coordinator Jeanine Nichols. Another menu item at Georgia Brown’s is “Free-Range Chicken Accompanied by Yellow Grit Cakes.”
Tempering Native American tastes
The influence of Native American cuisine is evident all over the country, whether we’re aware of it or not. The appeal is partially seasonal as well, says Beaulieu. “Every fall, there seems to be a renewed interest in it, because there are always comparisons to the first Thanksgiving,” she says.
But while it’s positive to see some restaurateurs and gourmets using the knowledge they have of the cuisine, there is very little recorded history of how Native Americans cooked until they moved out of their natural habitats and onto reservations, says Mark Miller. Added to questions of historical accuracy are issues regarding the marketability of the most authentic aspects of Native American cuisine.
Many of the wild herbs the Native Americans harvested and used for seasoning are far too bitter for today’s palates, says Mark Miller. And truly wild game is too wild for most diners. “People don’t want to see the turkey with the head. And people don’t like venison because it’s too ‘gamey,’ as they grew up on hamburgers and chicken,” he says. Miller adds that as an anthropologist he tries to present Native American influences with as much “integrity and honesty” as he can. But as a businessman and restaurateur, he has to “tailor it to what people like today.”
But even if it is somewhat tamer than what the first Americans ate, there is much to be gained from Native American cuisine. “They may have eaten corn every day, but there were as many as 350 varieties,” says Miller. “A rediscovery of this complexity and diversity can add to our diets.”