11th year of the Week of Indigenous Eating is Nov. 21-28!!!

Did you know?
Facts about Native Americans and
foods indigenous to the Western Hemisphere
About sixty percent of the world’s diet today is derived from foods indigenous to the Americas,
including potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, chilies, tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, peanuts,
wild rice, pineapple, avocado, papaya, pecans, strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, sunflowers, and
even chocolate. Long before 1492, Native peoples across the Americas had cultivated more than three
hundred food crops, and farming was an integral part of their lives.
Native Americans throughout the hemisphere were skilled plant breeders. Using agricultural techniques
of selection and adaptation, Native Americans were able to develop plants that were specific to their
geographic region. For example, near the current U.S.-Canadian border, tribes developed corn that
matured in sixty days because of the short growing season.
The indigenous people of what is now Vera Cruz, Mexico, first developed the complex process for
converting the pods of the vanilla orchid into the vanilla that is commonly used in cooking today. They
managed to keep this process secret from the Spanish for hundreds of years after their arrival.
Native people have grown and traded corn, or maize, for more than ten thousand years. Maize originated
in the Tehuacan Valley of present-day Mexico, where Native peoples cultivated the seeds of wild grass
called teosinte. From this, they developed over 250 varieties of maize and, through trade, its cultivation
spread throughout the Americas. In many Native American languages, the word corn means “our
mother” or “our life.”
The blueberry, one of the oldest foods in the world, is an indigenous wild plant from North America.
Most of the blueberries that are currently sold in grocery stores were domesticated from the same type of
wild blueberries that were gathered by North American Indians.
Peanuts are native to the Caribbean and were domesticated before 3000 BC by the Arawak people.
Because they did not like the taste of peanuts, Spanish explorers refused to eat them, and instead chose
to export them to West Africa, where they have become a culinary staple.
The word “squash” comes from the Narragansett word askutasquash, meaning “green thing that is eaten
raw.” The squash plant originated in the southern region of present-day Oaxaca, Mexico, where seeds
have been found dating back to 7849 BC. Native farmers cultivated various types of squash all over
North and South America, including the acorn, butternut, and Hubbard squash varieties, and pumpkins.
Many American Indians refer to squash, corn, and beans as the “three sisters.” Native people recognized
the symbiotic relationship between these plants and practiced a technique called companion planting,
where they would grow the three crops together. The tall cornstalk provides a natural trellis for the
beans; the beans take nitrogen from the air and put it into the soil, feeding the corn, bean, and squash
plants; and the squash plant’s large, low-lying leaves protect the roots and soil and discourages other
plants from spreading and choking the corn roots.
Spirulina, a blue-green algae, was harvested from lakes by the Aztec and dried. Algae contain seventy
percent protein and were a staple in their diet. Today, many health food stores sell algae.
The Maya were the first to turn cacao beans into chocolate, and invented the four step process that
removed the bitterness from the cacao bean. Modern manufacturers ferment, dry, and roast cacao beans
to extract chocolate in much the same way as Maya and Aztec growers did. The Aztec and Maya also
used cacao beans as a form of currency to buy goods and services and pay wages. In 1545, a turkey was
worth one hundred cacao beans.
Tomatoes were first domesticated in what is now Mexico and Peru as early as 700 AD. The Aztec later
combined them with chilies, the Spanish called this combination salsa. Chilies were gathered in wild
form in Mexico as early as circa 7000 BC and were being cultivated there before 3500 BC. The word
chile is derived from the Nahuatl language.
The domesticated turkeys that we eat today at Thanksgiving are bred from two species indigenous to the
Americas: Meleagris gallopavo of the eastern United States, portions of southern Canada, and northern
Mexico, and M. ocellata, which is found in the Yucatán, Belize, and northern Guatemala. The turkey is
believed to have been domesticated in Central America about three thousand years ago.
Although flour from wheat grain is now widely used throughout the Western Hemisphere, the
indigenous people of the Americas have been using flours from other sources in their cooking for a long
time. Until the 1500s, acorn and mesquite flours were staples for the tribes of the southwestern United
States. Great Plains and Plateau communities used flours extracted from cattail and wapato plants.
Manioc, amaranth, and corn flour continue to be common ingredients for Central and South American
Native cuisine.
By the 1500s, the Inka of western South America had developed a method of freeze-drying potatoes that
is still practiced today. The potatoes are frozen at high altitudes, which allow the moisture to vaporize.
These freeze-dried potatoes, called chuño, last for several years and remain a part of Bolivian and
Peruvian cuisine today.
Sources for these facts were taken from the following:
1. American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving teaching poster. Washington D.C.: National Museum
of the American Indian, 2008.
2. Barrows, Sally, ed. Do all Indians Live in Tipis? Questions and Answers from the National Museum
of the American Indian. Washington D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian in association with
HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
3. Blue Spruce, Duane, and Tanya Thrasher, eds. The Land has Memory: Indigenous Knowledge, Native
Landscapes, and the National Museum of the American Indian. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of
the American Indian in association with University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
4. Divina, Fernando, and Marlene Divina. Foods of the Americas. Washington, D.C.: National Museum
of the American Indian in association with Ten Speed Press, 2004.
5. Hoxie, Frederick E., ed. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture,
and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
6. Keoke, Emory Dean, and Kay Marie Porterfield. “100 Amazing Indian Discoveries” American
Indian Magazine, Fall 2004: 38-60.

http://go.si.edu/site/DocServer/Did_You_Know_Page_-_Printer_Friendly.pdf

I'm going to make some sort of wild rice dish for lunch...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C4GeKuspb14&pp=ygUPY3JvY2twb3Qgc2FsbW9u

Here is a sample menu in case anyone sees this and wants to take on this challenge!

This is from the decolonizing diet project that inspired the week of Indigenous Eating tradition. I was researching public health and Anthropology at the time this came out and have been trying to do this in some form or another ever since. It makes me so much more grateful for Thankgiving day with my family when I cook all the regular southern Casseroles and my Grandma's Waldorf salad.

herblovinmom wrote: »

@AdahPotatah2024
Thank you for posting these. That fried white pine bark and maple flavored grasshoppers has me curious. Do you have the recipes for these? Or where does one acquire such yumminess?

I was wondering about those, too! I would try the fried white pine bark.

There is a cookbook, but I haven't downloaded it.
Decolonizing Diet Project Cookbook: Featuring Indigenous Food Recipes from the Great Lakes Region
Front Cover
Martin Reinhardt, April E. Lindala, Leora Lancaster, Tina Moses
Northern Michigan University Press, Dec 15, 2015 - Cooking - 64 pages
The Decolonizing Diet Project (DDP) Cookbook features a collection of Indigenous food recipes from the Great Lakes Region. These recipes were produced by the research subject participants, staff, and volunteers of the DDP. All of the ingredients in these recipes either existed in the Great Lakes Region naturally, or were brought by Indigenous peoples to the Region prior to 1600.
More » https://books.google.com/books/about/Decolonizing_Diet_Project_Cookbook.html?id=zSrfjgEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description

Having bison, cornbread, and sweet potatoes tonight...😋

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yX_YPuND6Nk

I'm trying to find hickory nuts, but I guess I could try this with pecans...

I'm making this pumpkin frybread..can't remember what cookbook i copied this from as it was probably 10 years ago..

That recipe could definitely be made healthier.. I made it more like a pancake with a little less oil, rather than deep frying it . And added some Allspice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTkzBuD-cw&t=1s&pp=2AEBkAIB

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving!🍁🍂

Hobartlemagne wrote: »

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

"You will find no fry bread recipes here! "

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

I'm making this pumpkin frybread"

Why not adapt it to use cornmeal? Wheat flour was issued as rations from the US Army to natives.

The first one is not my words! I was referencing that website

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

"The goals of the AIHDP are to bring to light the health problems faced by indigenous peoples, to understand how we came to our unhealthy situations and what we can do about them. You will find no fry bread recipes here! This site also focuses on connecting with the natural world, how to extablish backyard and butterfly gardens, and how to prepare delicious meals with nutritious ingredients you can grow yourself, or purchase from farmers' markets. You do not have to be a chef! Historically, we ate simply and we should continue that tradition."

https://m.facebook.com/IndigenousEating/

https://aihd.ku.edu/

*I'm collecting some recipes here*

That being said, I think w/ the diabetes problem cornmeal frybread might be slightly healthier, but I understand why a lot of tribal citizens consider it a traditional food. It helped our ancestors survive and a lot of people learned to make it from their grandparents...