Up here in the Northwest, native cuisine not only includes camas, but also wapato, salal, and Oregon-grape (which is a berry, not a grape). Also salmon, of course.
So, people have named dishes prepared by Native Americans in various parts of the US–and Canada. And we’ve noted that Native foods are widely popular here, adapted by cooks with European or African roots.
To me, “cuisine” has a touch of “fine dining.” In 2014, Rick Bayless offered “Mexico City 1491” at Topolobampo–a tasting menu of dishes using only pre-Columbian ingredients. Inspired by the great Mesoamerican cultures, the dishes were prepared by cooks using state-of-the-art techniques.
It’s an artefact of the reservation system. U.S. gov supplied lard and flour. We’re not talking about hundreds of years here. Just a handful of generations.
My sister’s European ex asked me, “Where are the Native American restaurants?” I said there aren’t any, there is Native North American cuisine, and it inspires a number of restaurants with influences, for example – Tex-Mex (remember: Mexico is North America, not Central or South America.)
I asked him, “Where are the Gypsy, or Romani restaurants in Europe?” Yes, they have a cuisine, and it can inspire fusion themes you can find in small places. But there isn’t a tradition of Gypsy restaurants like there are French or Italian.
See, there are centuries of inns, taverns, and hotels, building to a restaurant culture. If that isn’t part of the historical culture, you won’t find a certain type of restaurant, despite the existence of a certain cuisine.
Your enemies? Revenge may be a dish best served cold but Other Tribe lung soup is definitely better when hot and fresh.
Not meant as a GQ answer; just me goofing around.
A lot of what Granny Clampett was mentioned cooking on The Beverly Hillbillies would count as Native American cuisine, including crawdads (crayfish), pawpaw, and possum. I’d guess for the average person reading this, those count as “had”, “never had” and “never wanted.” Other options include pokeberry and acorns, both of which need to be specially treated before they become palatable.
(I’ve long wanted to try growing a few pawpaw trees here in South Carolina, but never got around to buying any. The fruit apparently doesn’t have a good shelf life, which is why you don’t find it in grocery stores alongside your apples, oranges, and bananas.)
ETA: Oh! More Native American foods worth checking out–muscadine and scuppernong grapes.
“A handful of generations” is plenty of time for a dish to become “traditional”. When people say “traditional”, what they really mean is “like Grandma used to do”. And every Native American alive is young enough for their grandmas to have made fry bread.
Muktuk is found a little further north.
It was part of a roadkill deer that someone brought in.
The Mrs. and I had a lovely meal at the Desert Rain Cafe a few years ago, featuring dishes based on the traditional foods of the Tohono O’odham.
Past thread on this topic here: Where are all of the Native American restaurants? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
We had lunch at the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa this past summer. Their menu has a lot of things like burgers and other typical American fare, but they also have some typical Hopi dishes. We had both Tsili’ongava (Slow cooked Red Chili beans and ground beef served with diced green chili and choice of regular or blue frybread or regular or blue flour tortilla} and Noqkwivi (White corn hominy and tender lamb stew served with diced green chili and choice of regular or blue frybread or regular or blue flour tortilla). Descriptions are from their menu (scroll down to get to the Hopi items).
Wild rice is a Native American food
Moderator Action
Since this is about food, let’s move it to CS (from GQ).
Saying Native American cuisine would be akin to saying European cuisine. It’s so broad as to be somewhat meaningless.
Despite this, I’ve long encouraged my Indian wife to go into the restaurant business with her family selling “Authentic Native cuisine” by real live Indians. Here in the bay area this would go over well.
I’m getting to really really hate the use of this term. “Appropriated”. Every damned culture on Earth as picked up and incorporated things from other cultures. It is how Humans work. It isn’t “theft” to start eating a new food you encounter.
Entire native American cultures changed in a generation with the arrival of horses. That wasn’t ‘appropriating’ European culture either.
I didn’t say it was theft. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with appropriation of culture. What about the literal use of a word is bothering you?
Not likely. More like northern Minnesota.
Wild rice is the seed of a grass that grows in lakes. Harvesting it is very labor intensive; one person has to paddle a canoe slowly through the grass while another beats it with paddles so that the grains fall into the canoe. This is why it’s so expensive.
At least, that’s the traditional way. Maybe agrobusiness has made inroads into wild rice production, but I’ve only ever seen packages of wild rice harvested by Native Americans in this manner.
Wild rice is also very tough and has a strong nutty flavor. For this reason, it’s often mixed in with brown (unmilled long-grain) rice, which is what I use when making my holiday turkey dressing.
This might be of interest to some:
Jeff Smith did a number of shows on Native and Early American cuisine (along with the cooking of many other ethnic groups).
Was this before or after he sexually harassed every young man who worked in his studio? This is from a person who owns both Three Ancient Cuisines and Cooks American.
I would assume this was before such accusations were leveled against him, yes. Not that I give them any credit.