I'm not sure how inclusive you are meaning to be when you refer to
"Native Americans" since that term would apply to all the peoples of the
Western Hemisphere.

Quiona? Did you mean quinoa? That was Peruvian. I don't have any idea
how it was cooked. Tomatoes were only used by the Aztec and maybe the
Mayans. Sapodilla is a tropical fruit. Not likely that any one group
of people would have dined at all of those items. What is "sisania?"

The rest of the foods are found in the United States ... eaten by the
natives of colonial America.

Scuppernongs are a white sport (a mutation that occurred naturally) of
the muscadine grape. Muscadines and Scuppernongs are Southern grapes so
they are warm climate plants.

A pawpaw is a wild fruit that folks in Louisiana and eastern edge of
Texas make jelly out of. It may have a larger native range. I don't
know. I have never seen the fruit in supermarkets.

The word "pone" is an Algonguin Indian word, and you should be able to
find recipes for Ash Cakes/Corn Pone on the internet. They were likely
to be very basic -- ground corn mixed with water baked on a rock on in
ashes.

Succotash, a Narragansett Indian word, is a dish combining corn and
beans. This was exceeding popular when I was a child. It was prepared
with fresh green lima beans, corn scraped from the cob, butter, and
cream. It is very doubtful that the Narragansett were using beans that
originated in Peru (the source of origin of large beans, including
Limas. It is more likely they were using some variety of small beans,
whose origin was out of Mexico. Also, they would not have had dairy.
Maybe some Plymouth Rock website might give you some help with
Narragansett cookery and some Jamestown websites would be helpful for
Algonguin Cookery.

We know there was squash here when the first Europeans arrived but what
exactly were those squash? There was definitely cushaw because it is an
Algonquin Indian word. As far as I know it is pretty much a warm
climate plant. I see it at Farmer's Markets but I've never seen it in a
grocery store. You could give it a try yourself. See:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...e=UTF8&seller=

Sassafras Root is being sold on ebay - $8.50 a bundle.

Interesting project. Let us know what you come up with.

Cookie



wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Our family is interested in trying a meal or two from the Native
> American diet, as an educational experience.
>
> There are a couple of problems with the practical side of things:
> 1. First, we can use *familiar* native American foods, like corn,
> beans, pumpkin, tomato, blueberries, honey, salmon, strawberries,
> etc. But I'm told that the native American people didn't fix them the
> same way that I know to fix them. (What? They didn't turn tomatoes
> into Campbell's Soup and then cook them on an electric stove?!!) So
> if we use these foods, we need a more authentic way of preparing
> them.
> 2. On the other hand, if we want to use native American foods that
> are *unfamiliar* to us, we don't know where to get them! Where does
> an urban Wisconsonite go to gather scuppernongs, quiona, sapodilla,
> pawpaw, sisania, and sassafras? Where can I hunt an elk, or milk an
> alpaca? Where will I find the eggs of anything other than chickens?
>
> Thank you very much!
>
> Ted Shoemaker
>