Indigenous cuisine of the Americas

Frybread

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. The use of indigenous domesticated and wild food ingredients can represent Native American food and cuisine. 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.

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. 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, making up about 75 per cent of the diet, and dried meats were prepared during the season when drying was possible.

Some Dishes

File:MsSh Cornbread.jpg

Corn bread

Succotash

• 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.

• Barbacoa, the origin of the English word barbecue, a method of slow-grilling meat over a fire pit

Jerk chicken with plaintains, rice and honey biscuit

• 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.

Native American cuisine of Mesoamerica

Main articles: Aztec cuisine and Maya cuisine

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

Tamales

• Tacos
• Tamales
• Tlacoyos (gordita)
• Pozole
• Mole
• Guacamole
• Salsa
• Mezcal
• Tortillas
• Champurrado, a chocolate drink [4]

Pupusas

• Xocolātl
• Pejelagarto, a fish with an alligator-like head seasoned with the amashito chile and lime [5]
• Pulque
• 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

Main article: Inca cuisine

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

Roast guinea pig (cuy)

• 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.
• Pachamanca, stew cooked in a hautía oven

Ceviche

• 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
• Llajua, salsa of Bolivia
• Llapingachos, mashed-potato cakes from Ecuador

Other South American cultures

Cheese-filled arepa

• 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
• Merken, a ají powder from the Mapuche of Patagonia
• Pira caldo, Paraguayan fish soup

Chipa

• 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 and mano

• 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
• Cuia, a gourd used for drinking mate in South America

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

Acorn - Used to make flour and fertilizers for the plants. Achiote or annatto seed, seasoning Acuyo, seasoning Agarita - berries Agave nectar Allspice or pimento, seasoning Amaranth American chestnut Amole - stalks Aspen - inner bark and sap (both used as sweetener) Avocado Beans - Throughout the Americas Bear grass - stalks Birch bark Birch syrup Blackberries Blueberries Box elder - inner bark (used as sweetener) Cacao Cactus (various species) - fruits Canella winterana, or white cinnamon (used as a seasoning before cinnamon) Cashew Cassava - Primarily South America Cattails - rootstocks Century plant (a.k.a. mescal or agave) - crowns (tuberous base portion) and shoots Chicle, gum Chile peppers (including bell peppers) Cherimoya Chokecherries Cholla - fruits Coca - South and Central America Cranberries Culantro, used as a seasoning before cilantro Currants Custard-apple Datil - fruit and flowers Devil's claw Dropseed grasses (various varieties) - seeds Elderberries Emory oak - acorns Epazote, seasoning Goldenberry Gooseberries Guarana Guava Hackberries Hawthorne - fruit Herba luisa Hueinacaztli or "ear-flower" Hickory - nuts Hops Horsemint Huazontle Jicama Juniper berries Kiwacha Lamb's-quarters - leaves and seeds Locust - blossoms and pods Lúcuma Maca Maize - Throughout the Americas, probably domesticated in or near Mexico Mamey Maple syrup and sugar, used as the primary sweetener and seasoning in Northern America Mesquite - bean pods, flour/meal Mint Mexican oregano Mulberries Nopales Onions Palmetto Papaya Passionfruit Paw paw Peanuts

Pecan - nuts Pennyroyal - American False variety Pigweed - seeds Pine (including western white pine and western yellow pine) - inner bark (used as sweetener) and nuts Pineapples - South America Pinyon - nuts Popcorn flower, herb Potatoes - North and South America Prickly pears Prairie turnips Pumpkins Purslane - leaves Quinoa - South America, Central America, and Eastern North America Ramps - Wild onion Raspberries Rice - imported by Spanish Sage Saguaro - fruits and seeds Salt Sapote Sassafras Screwbean - fruit Sedge - tubers Shepherd's purse - leaves Sotol - crowns Soursop or guanábana Spanish bayonet - fruit Spanish lime or mamoncillo Squash - Throughout the Americas Strawberries Sumac - berries Sunflower seeds Sweet potato - South America Sweetsop or sugar-apple Tamarillo Teaberry Tobacco Tomatillo Tomato Texas persimmons Tule - rootstocks Tumbleweed - seeds Tumbo Vanilla Vetch - pods White evening primrose - fruit White walnuts Wild celery Wild cherries Wild grapes - fruit Wild honey Wild onion Wild pea - pods Wild roses Wood sorrel leaves Yaupon holly leaves Yerba buena Yerba mate Yucca - blossoms, fruit, and stalks

Hunted or livestock

• Antelope
• Badger
• Bear
• Beaver
• Bighorn sheep
• Bison - Originally found throughout most of North America
• Burro - from Europe
• 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
• 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

Miscellaneous section

History of Salsa

The word salsa is the Spanish word for sauce. The salsas many of us think of are salsa frescas or salsa cruda, fresh sauces served as a condiment aside a Mexican meal. These uncooked sauces might be pureed until smooth, semi-chunky, or the uniformly chopped pico de gallo.

The Chile - Tomato Combo The making of a sauce by combining chiles, tomatoes and other ingredients like squash seeds and even beans has been documented back to the Aztec culture.

We have Spanish-born Bernadino de Sahagun to thank for the detailed culinary history of the Aztec culture. His extensive writings documented every food common to the culture. This is an excerpt from Sahagun's writings about the food vendors in the large Aztec markets: "He sells foods, sauces, hot sauces, fried [food], olla-cooked, juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds, with tomatoes, with smoke chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated sauce, he sells toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce".

Ingredients Then and Now

The paragraph above refers to many of the ingredients in our modern-day salsas.

Large tomatoes - We believe this references is to a large red tomato similar to what we eat to day.

Ordinary tomatoes - most likely this reference is to the tomatillo or tomate verde.

Smoked chiles - The chipotle or smoked jalapeño was a staple in the Aztec diet.

Avocado - cultivated by the Aztecs the avocado was an important source of fat and protein and was used in a sauce similar to what we call guacamole.

Mexican cuisine

Mexican food is a style of food that originated in Mexico with some, albeit minor Spanish influences. It also contains the influence of the French cuisine that dates to the colonial times as well as Italian influence in the form of various cheeses.

Mexican cuisine is known for its intense and varied flavors, colorful decoration, and the variety of spices that it has. Mexican gastronomy, in terms of diversity of appealing tastes and textures, is one of the richest in the world in proteins, vitamins, and minerals, though some people characterize it as excessively spicy.

When Spanish conquistadores arrived in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (on the ruins of which Mexico City was built), they found that the common people's diet consisted largely of corn-based dishes with chilis and herbs, usually complemented with beans and squash. Later on, the conquistadores added to their original diet of rice, beef, pork, chicken, wine, garlic, and onions that they brought with them from Spain to the indigenous foods of pre-Columbian Mexico (including chocolate, maize, tomato, vanilla, avocado, papaya, pineapple, chile pepper, beans, squash, sweet potato, peanut and turkey). The totopo (cooked in a fire oven corn tortilla) may have been created as part of this cuisine.

Most of today's Mexican cuisine is based on pre-hispanic traditions, including the Aztecs and Maya, combined with culinary trends introduced by Spanish colonists. Quesadillas, for example, are a flour or corn tortilla with cheese (often a Mexican-style Mozzarella called quezo casero or Oaxaca), beef, chicken, pork, and so on. The indigenous part of this and many other traditional foods is the chile pepper and the corn. Foods like these tend to be very colorful because of the rich variety of vegetables (among them are the tomotatoes, chili peppers, green peppers, chiles, broccoli, cauliflower, avocadoes and radishes) and meats in Mexican food. There is also a sprinkling of Caribbean influence in Mexican cuisine, particularly in some regional dishes from the states of Veracruz and Yucatan. The French occupation of Mexico also yielded some influences as well: the bolillo (pronounced bo-lee-yo, with the "o" as in "bore"), a Mexican take on the French roll, certainly seems to reflect this.

Mexican food varies by region, because of local climate and geography and ethnic differences among the people and because these different populations were influenced by the Spaniards and other settlers in varying degrees. The north of Mexico is known for its beef production and meat dishes; southeastern Mexico, on the other hand, is known for its spicy vegetable and chicken-based dishes. Veracruz-style is a common method of preparing seafood.

There are also more exotic dishes, cooked in the Aztec or Maya style, with ingredients ranging from iguana to rattlesnake, deer, spider monkey, and even some kinds of insects. This is usually known as comida prehispanica (or prehispanic food), and although not very common, is relatively well known.

A distinction must be made between truly authentic Mexican food, and the Cal-Mex (Californian-Mexican) and "Tex Mex" (Texan-Mexican) cuisine. Mexican cuisine combines with the cuisine of the southwest United States (which itself has a number of Mexican influences) to form Cal-Mex and Tex-Mex cuisine. Another style of cuisine that is commonly mistaken for Mexican food is New Mexican cuisine, which can be found in, of course, New Mexico, USA.

Hispanic Cuisine

There is also no single Hispanic cuisine. Traditional Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Spanish, Argentine, and Peruvian cooking, for example, all vary greatly from each other with varying African, Native American and other European inflences combining with the common Spanish elements. While Mexican cuisine is the most familiar variety of "Hispanic food" in most of the United States, it is not representative of the cuisine of most other Hispanic countries.

In some regions, the cuisine of Mexico can be heavily dependent on staples such as maize, beans, chile peppers and is greatly indebted to the cuisine and diet of the Aztec and Maya. In other regions the cuisine resembles that of other Hispanic countries like Cuba and Puerto Rico. On the other hand, may be dependent on starchy root vegetables, plantain and rice and is influenced by the flavors of Spain, Africa and China. The cuisine of Spain often mirrors the cuisines of its Mediterranean neighbors, and in addition to the abundance of olives, olive oil, tomatoes, seafood and meats, other foreign influences, such as the use of saffron, were introduced during the spice trade. Meanwhile, Argentina relies almost exclusively on red meats, consuming almost everything derived from beef, and is heavily influenced by Italian cuisine. In Peruvian cuisine guinea pigs are popular as a source of meat (derived from the diet of the Inca) and staples indigenous to the region, such as maize and the myriad of potato varieties, are the most utilized there. Rice also plays an important role in Peruvian cuisine.

This diversity in staples and cuisine is also evident in the differing regional cuisines within the national borders of the individual countries. Most groceries in heavily Hispanic areas carry a wide array of specialty Latin American products, in addition to the widely available brands of tortillas and Mexican style salsa.

See also

• Locavores
• Transhumance
• Hunter gatherer

External links

• Traditional Chiricahua recipes
• Canadian Wild Foods

Bibliography

Niethammer, Carolyn. American Indian Food and Lore. New York: A Simon & Schuster Macmillan Company, 1974. ISBN 0-02-010000-0