When I was a kid and my parents used to talk about going out for Indian food I always assumed they meant Native American Indian food and I never asked them about it. I don’t know how old I was when I first realized it was tandoori chicken and samosas and not venison with squash and corn.
Why is it that there don’t seem to be any restaurants that serve “authentic” Native American food? Of any tribe or region? I never even see it as a restaurant motif. Are Native American trappings the kiss of death for eating establishments, or is there some other reason why this segment of the population has not made its mark on restaurant cuisine?
Someone I asked about this gave me the answer that “Native Americans don’t believe in doing business” but that is a total crock (look at all the casinos and cigarette shops.) Besides, it’s not as if “all Indians” have the same values and standards about business.
So what’s the real reason? Has anyone here seen a Native American restaurant?
Well, it depends on how Native American you want to get. They are a couple of Navajo Taco places run by real Navajos here in SLC, Utah. Generally all they offer are Navajo Tacos and Fry Bread. Good stuff though. (A Navajo Taco is a fairly large piece of fry bread with ground beef, chili, tomatoes, cheese, and lettuce, stacked kinda like a tostado. ) Does that qualify?
That does indeed qualify (although I think Mexican food and Tex-Mex bears more ‘Indian’ influence than other kinds of food. However the restaurants aren’t usually themed as Native American restaurants.)
Actually I’m most curious about the Northeastern and Great Plains Indians.
Here in the Pacific Northwest there are a couple of Native American-type restaurants… serving mostly salmon dishes. But, the couple I’ve been to haven’t actually seemed to have any indigenous peoples working there (unless they’re in the kitchen).
Judging by historical notes of the typical diet and food on preparation methods of North American Plains Indians , even from a curiosity point of view, relatively little of it sounded particularly appetizing.
Just for strangeness sake, there is a very nice restaurant that includes Native American dishes in Cheltenham in the UK. The name illudes me at the moment, but if anyone really wants to know, I could find it with a thorough web search.
(the name had something to do with hot air baloons, and the owner was a hot air balloonist)
I’ve been to a Mi’kmaq restaurant in the Maritimes… I think it was in Nova Scotia, but I’m not certain. I was rather young at the time, so I have no idea how authentic or non-tacky it was.
As far as Great Plains, I’m not sure if an authentic hunter-gatherer restaurant would be that appealing to modern tastes. Pemmican, powdered venison or buffalo mixed with berries and equal parts hot fat or bone grease may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a very high calorie food, intentionally so, designed to last while traveling and provide as much energy as possible. Other foods might not be that palatable to us, either: immediately after killing a buffalo the raw spleen was considered an on-the-spot delicacy, but this may not be a popular dish to some.
Even among the stuff modern America would enjoy, the menu would probably be pretty simplistic compared to what we’re used to…buffalo meat, lots of fat, more buffalo meat, berries, roots, leaves, more buffalo meat, maybe some pinon nuts. It’s not exactly like you can order the fajitas if you don’t feel like the enchiladas. I don’t think a Great Plains American Indian restaurant would much appeal to the modern American palate if authentic, even if we did have enough buffalo.
Don’t get me wrong, buffalo meat from the muscle is really good. Plains Indians tended to consume a whole lot more than just the muscle, though, like organs, fat, testicles, nose, marrow, raw spleen, blood, hump, tongue, etcetera etcetera. All perfectly healthy and fine for a plains Indian, but a pretty hard sell to modern Americans, even a sushi fan. To be completely authentic you’d have to eat sitting on the ground without utensil beyond sticks or flint tools, no plates, and nothing much to drink but water. Most people don’t even like chopsticks.
We do have them, except they’re called “Mexican” restaurants. Seriously.
And of course at least half our food crops originated in the Americas. Just sit down to a nice Thanksgiving dinner of turkey with cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, and you’re eating native american food.
When I went to Rotorua in New Zealand, I visited a local tourist-educaitonal site called (for short) Whakarewarewa (pronounced fah-kah-ree-wa-ree-wa with rolled r’s), which is a Maori cultural and arts center built right next to a big area of especially high geothermal activity. Anyway, the Maori lived in a villiage there for a long time, hunted and gathered nearby, and cooked their food in the hot springs. A big feast was called a Hangi. You can still go there and participate in a Hangi of sorts, but about the only traditional food you’re going to get is the kumara (sweet potato).
The reason for this is a good portion of the Maori diet is now illegal to procure. Either that, or it’s extinct. Some of the illegal stuff includes kiwi, and, on occasion, people. The rest is, shall we say, also a bit exotic by American standards. Polynesians brought rats to NZ specifically to eat, as well as dogs, though dogs had many more uses than as food, obviously. No beef. No lamb. Not even possum. Moa, those were the real prize, as we can now see, since they were killed off completely.
I’m guessing whatever Native Americans ate that Eurpoean immigrants haven’t already absorbed into their diets would fall into the category of “exotic” or illegal, too. Simple corn breads and patties, bison, venison, rabbit, etc. we whiteys eat, and since we prefer it freshly killed and cooked, traditional Indian methods (I’m thinking lots of smoking and drying of pretty much everything that must be stored) of preperation probably wouldn’t be to the liking of your average consumer.
Ivar’s, a Seattle chain of Salmon eateries, isn’t explicitly Native American, but they do (at least at a couple of their locations) have totem pole and Indian canoe decoration motifs. I’m sure some of those reservation casinos have a few eagle feathers up over the bar.
