Native American Recipes

For added flavor, cook eggs with melted bacon fat or cut calories and fat by using a cooking spray.

The staple foods for Native Americans are the combination of corn or maize, beans and squash which were called 'The Three Sisters".

Most every meal contains at least one or all three of these foods.

Native people planted the three plants together such that the beans grew on the tall stalks of the corn, while the squash formed a ground cover to protect the plants from weeds.

They grew corn or maize, for hominy and dried it to make corn meal. Flour for bread was made from dried, ground acorns.

They had plantations and grew potatoes, pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, peppers, sassafras, muscadines, blackberries, raspberries, other wild berries and wild onions.

Other staple food are: Quinoa which is a variety of amaranth and sumpweed or marsh elder.

They also grew barley, maygrass, sunflower and foraged for mushrooms.

They harvested seafood, fish, oysters and salmon. And kept live stock like pigs.

They hunted wild game, boar, deer, duck, opossums, pheasant, quail, rabbit, raccoon, squirrels and buffalo.

These were all staple foods for the Western Native Cultures.

And all parts of the animal was used including chitterlings, which are fried large intestines of hogs, pork brain and eggs and livermush made from hog liver.

Fantastic Vegetable Dish! Serve with steamed Wild Rice and a grilled Venison Steak!

Fantastic!! Adapted from a Food Network recipe to reduce the calories and sodium content.

Wojapi is a thick berry sauce. If your berries are ripe and tasty, there is no need to add additional sweeteners.

Traditionally, Wojapi is not made with cornstarch, flour or sugar.

Wild meats tend to have a "gamey" flavor. You can reduce that taste by skimming away all excess fat.

You can grill or pan fry your streaks.

Natural food stores carry Sassafras Root in a dried form. It will resemble wood chips. Sassafras tea may act as a diuretic, reducing excess water weight and swelling.

Cherokee first settled in southeastern North American between A.D. 1000 and 1500. Cherokees referred to themselves as "the Real People" or "the Principal People", which in their language is Ani-yun'wiya' .

Dumpling Lovers Unite!!

Many southeastern foods are adapted from the native tribes. Some of the Cherokee dishes are fried green tomatoes, greens or ramps, cornbread, hoecakes, bean bread, many peanut dishes.

My Mother is Creek and my Father is Seminole.

Making fry bread takes alot of practice. Keep trying if your first batch isn't perfect.

"Chitlins" or Chitterlings are the small intestine of a hog. My NA Grandfather was a hog farmer and he used every bit of the hog he could.

Cooked properly it is a fine meal. Use potatoes to absorb the smell of the chitterlings while cooking.

"Do you know American's Original People?"

In the 2000 census North American Indians and Alaskan Natives number only about 2.5 million.

Native American Indians believe that patience is considered a good quality and that respected members of some Nations are ones who shares and gives their wisdom and wealth to others.

My inspiration in collecting and sharing these recipes is to continue in that tradition of sharing wisdom and wealth.

My cookbook also has a Mini Tutorial for you and your family to learn "Pow Wow Etiquette"!

Enjoy,
Love, Vera

My Sparkpeople Cookbook is "Food Origins ~ Native American" is at: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/Cookbooks.a
sp?cookbook=462388

Delicious! Enjoy this light fresh vegetable salad dressed with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt and black pepper!

Acorns taste like a cross between hazelnuts and sunflower seeds and were nearly as important a food to Native Americans as corn, squash and beans.

Cherokee, Apache, Pima, Ojibwa, and most all other Native Americans tribes across the oak growing North and South America routinely harvested and used acorn nuts from oak trees and they taught early settlers how to harvest and use acorns, corn and other traditional foods too.

Native Americans carried dried Acorn Cakes, Pemmican, shredded meat and or soups on journeys.

Pre-mix the dried ingredients in a zip lock bag to carry along on a camping trip to make Apache Indian bread over an open fire.

Native Americans have had Bannock cooking over a campfire for many many years. It's now becoming popular with campers.

Prepare a favorite bannock recipe, bake in an oven or divide the dough into egg sized lumps and firmly wrap each lump around the end of a four foot stick. Prop the stick securely over the fire until golden brown. Turn the stick to cook the bread evenly.

Acorn bread is a delicious, sweet, crumbly dessert bread that was introduced to Colonists by Native Americans.

Enjoy! This is a Native American favorite from the Seminole Indian Nation in Florida and other southern states.

Wojapi is a thick berry sauce. If your berries are ripe and tasty, there is no need to add additional sweeteners.

Traditionally, it was not made with flour or sugar.