A feast day of a different setting
This is an article from Backwoods Home Magazine online:
A Native American feast
By Jackie Clay
When the holidays roll around, a lot of folks get bored with the “same-old meal.” You know, turkey, mashed potatoes—the whole traditional meal. But some adventurous families might like to try something a bit different—something more in tune to their self-reliance.
As a family of mixed Indian heritage (as well as hard-core, traditional hunter/gatherers), we often turn to a feast day of a different setting.
Remember, though, that Native Americans did not celebrate “Thanksgiving,” but feasted with joy the fall hunts and stored crops, and moved to safe, snug winter camps, or saw their permanent home fortified against winter winds. This was, indeed, a cause for thanksgiving.
Each region had its own foods for feasting, and the recipes differed from tribe to tribe. Where Northwestern tribes feasted on salmon and whale, Southwestern Indians gathered around a bounty of tamales and chiles. (Chile is the correct spelling of the chile pepper in the southwest, as opposed to the “chili” of elsewhere. Chili is a dish, often composed of chilies, meat, and sometimes beans.)
For our Native American feast, however, let’s try one of our favorites, which is widely adaptable to any household or personal taste. This meal can be prepared in the traditional way, by a fireside, using clean hot rocks and dropped into a clay pot (or even older, a cleaned paunch bag, propped up by several sticks driven into the ground), more modern camp cooking, or the way I most often make our feast, in a Dutch oven on our wood stove.
The main course can even be done in a large crock pot, ensuring tender meat and very little work.
You can use any wild game meat—deer, elk, moose, caribou, or substitute a loin of pork or even a piece of tender beef loin—whatever you have available.
Likewise, any mushroom will do, but we prefer wild mushrooms we have gathered during the spring and summer months. (If using wild mushrooms, be absolutely sure you know what you are gathering and feeding to your family. Some are deadly.)
I like dried morels or white meadow mushrooms. Dried, rehydrated mushrooms are traditional and give a richer flavor. You can use mushrooms from your produce counter.
In place of the wild onions and garlic, you could use domestic varieties, but you will be lacking flavor.
Once you taste this unusual holiday meal, you’ll quickly see what the word “feast” really means. And, as you read the ingredients, you can easily see how well they fit into the lifestyle of self-reliant people.
For recipes see the first reply.
A Native American feast
By Jackie Clay
When the holidays roll around, a lot of folks get bored with the “same-old meal.” You know, turkey, mashed potatoes—the whole traditional meal. But some adventurous families might like to try something a bit different—something more in tune to their self-reliance.
As a family of mixed Indian heritage (as well as hard-core, traditional hunter/gatherers), we often turn to a feast day of a different setting.
Remember, though, that Native Americans did not celebrate “Thanksgiving,” but feasted with joy the fall hunts and stored crops, and moved to safe, snug winter camps, or saw their permanent home fortified against winter winds. This was, indeed, a cause for thanksgiving.
Each region had its own foods for feasting, and the recipes differed from tribe to tribe. Where Northwestern tribes feasted on salmon and whale, Southwestern Indians gathered around a bounty of tamales and chiles. (Chile is the correct spelling of the chile pepper in the southwest, as opposed to the “chili” of elsewhere. Chili is a dish, often composed of chilies, meat, and sometimes beans.)
For our Native American feast, however, let’s try one of our favorites, which is widely adaptable to any household or personal taste. This meal can be prepared in the traditional way, by a fireside, using clean hot rocks and dropped into a clay pot (or even older, a cleaned paunch bag, propped up by several sticks driven into the ground), more modern camp cooking, or the way I most often make our feast, in a Dutch oven on our wood stove.
The main course can even be done in a large crock pot, ensuring tender meat and very little work.
You can use any wild game meat—deer, elk, moose, caribou, or substitute a loin of pork or even a piece of tender beef loin—whatever you have available.
Likewise, any mushroom will do, but we prefer wild mushrooms we have gathered during the spring and summer months. (If using wild mushrooms, be absolutely sure you know what you are gathering and feeding to your family. Some are deadly.)
I like dried morels or white meadow mushrooms. Dried, rehydrated mushrooms are traditional and give a richer flavor. You can use mushrooms from your produce counter.
In place of the wild onions and garlic, you could use domestic varieties, but you will be lacking flavor.
Once you taste this unusual holiday meal, you’ll quickly see what the word “feast” really means. And, as you read the ingredients, you can easily see how well they fit into the lifestyle of self-reliant people.
For recipes see the first reply.
