Native American cuisine

Eastern Native American cuisine

The essential staple foods of the Eastern Woodlands Aboriginal Americans were corn (also known as Maize), beans, and squash. These were called the "Three Sisters" because they were planted interdependently: the beans grew up the tall stalks of the maize, while the squash spread out at the base of the three plants and provided protection and support for the root systems. A number of other domesticated crops were also popular during some time periods in the Eastern Woodlands, including a local version of quinoa, a variety of amaranth, sumpweed/marsh older, little barley, maygrass, and sunflowers.

Southeastern Native American cuisine

Southeastern Native American culture has formed the cornerstone of Southern cuisine from its origins till the present day. From Southeastern Native American culture came one of the main staples of the Southern diet: corn (maize), either ground into meal or limed with an alkaline salt to make hominy, using a Native American technology known as nixtamalization.^[7] Corn was used to make all kinds of dishes from the familiar cornbread and grits to liquors such as whiskey, which were important trade items. Though a lesser staple, potatoes were also adopted from Native American cuisine and were used in many ways similar to corn. Native Americans introduced the first non-Native American Southerners to many other vegetables still familiar on southern tables. Squash, pumpkin, many types of beans, tomatoes (though Europeans initially considered them poisonous), many types of peppers, and sassafras all came to the settlers via the native tribes.

Many fruits are available in this region. Muscadines, blackberries, raspberries, and many other wild berries were part of Southern Native Americans' diet.

Southeastern Native Americans also supplemented their diets with meats derived from the hunting of native game. Venison was an important meat staple, due to the abundance of white-tailed deer in the area. They also hunted rabbits, squirrels, opossums, and raccoons. Livestock, adopted from Europeans, in the form of hogs and cattle, were kept. Aside from the meat, it was not uncommon for them to eat organ meats such as liver, brains, and intestines. This tradition remains today in hallmark dishes like chitterlings, commonly called chitlins, which are the fried large intestines of hogs; livermush, a common dish in the Carolinas made from hog liver; and pork brains and eggs. The fat of the animals, particularly of hogs, was rendered and used for cooking and frying. Many of the early settlers were taught Southeastern Native American cooking methods.

Great Plains Native American cuisine

Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies or Plains Indians relied heavily on Bison (American Buffalo) as a food source. The meat was cut in thin slices and dried, either over a slow fire or in the hot sun, until it was hard and brittle which could last for months, making it a main ingredient to be combined with other foods, or eaten on its own. One such use could be Pemmican, a concentrated mixture of fat and protein, and fruits such as cranberries, saskatoon berries, blueberries, cherries, chokeberries, chokecherries, and currants were sometimes added.

Western Native American cuisine

In the Northwest of what is now the United States, Native Americans used salmon and other fish, seafood, mushrooms, berries, and meats such as deer, duck, and rabbit. In contrast to the Easterners, the Northwestern aboriginal peoples were principally hunter-gatherers. The generally mild climate meant they did not need to develop an economy based upon agriculture but instead could rely year-round on the abundant food supplies of their region. In what is now California, acorns were ground into a flour that was the principal foodstuff for about seventy-five percent of the population,^[9] and dried meats were prepared during the season when drying was possible.^[10]

Dishes

Cornbread

Succotash

• Acorn bread
• Acorn mush, from the Miwok people^[11]
• Akutaq, also called "Eskimo ice cream", made from caribou or moose tallow and meat, berries, seal oil, and sometimes fish, whipped together with snow or water
• Bannock, a bread of European origin, cooked over an open fire
• Bean bread, made with corn meal and beans, popular among the Cherokee
• Bird brain stew, from the Cree nation^[12]
• Black drink or asi, a Southeastern ceremonial drink made from the yaupon holly
• Buffalo stew, from the Lakota and Cherokee people, also called tanka-me-a-lo^[13]
• Chinook olives, a type of cured acorn eaten by the aboriginal people of the Columbia River Valley
• Cornbread and corn pone—the word pone derives from the word for 'bread' in some Eastern Algonquian languages, such as Powhatan apon^[14] and Lenape ahpòn^[15]
• Dried meats like jerky and smoked salmon strips
• Filé powder, made from sassafras leaves, used by the Choctaw for flavoring and thickening soups and stews as well as for herbal medicine
• Frybread, a dish made from ingredients distributed to Native Americans living on reservations and also from ell
• Green chili stew
• Hopi tea, an herbal tea made from Thelesperma megapotamicum
• Mutton stew, from the Navajo people
• Nokake, Algonquian hoecakes, made of cornmeal
• Pemmican, a concentrated food consisting of dried pulverized meat, dried berries, and rendered fat
• Piki bread, from the Hopi people
• Psindamoakan, a Lenape hunter's food made of parched cornmeal mixed with maple sugar
• Pueblo bread
• Salted salmon, an Inuit dish of brined salmon in a heavy concentration of salt water, left for months to soak up salts
• Sapan (pronounced [ˈsaːpːʌn]),^[16] cornmeal mush, a staple of Lenape cuisine
• Stink fish, an Inuit dish of dried fish, kept underground until ripe, for later consumption; also done with fish heads
• Succotash, a dish of beans and corn
• Tiswin, a term used for several fermented beverages in the Southwest, including a corn or fruit beer of the Apache and a saguaro fruit beer of the Tohono O'odham
• Walrus flipper soup, an Inuit dish made from walrus flippers
• Wojapi, a Plains Indian pudding of mashed, cooked berries.

Some known dishes

Andean cultures

This currently includes recipes known from the Quechua, Aymara and Nazca of the Andes.

• Grilled guinea pig, a native to most of the Andes region, this small rodent has been cultivated for at least 4000 years.
• Fried green tomatoes, a nightshade relative native to Peru;
• Saraiaka, a corn liquor;
• Chicha, a generic name for any number of indigenous beers found in South America. Though chichas made from various types of corn are the most common in the Andes, chicha in the Amazon Basin frequently use manioc. Variations found throughout the continent can be based on amaranth, quinoa, peanut, potato, coca, and many other ingredients.
• Chicha morada, a Peruvian, sweet, unfermented drink made from purple corn, fruits, and spices.
• Colada morada, a thickened, spiced fruit drink based on the Andean blackberry, traditional to the Day of the Dead ceremonies held in Ecuador, it is typically served with guagua de pan, a bread shaped like a swaddled infant (formerly made from cornmeal in Pre-Columbian times), though other shapes can be found in various regions.
• Quinoa porridge;
• Ch'arki, a type of dried meat.
• Humitas, similar to modern-day Tamales, a thick mixture of corn, herbs and onion, cooked in a corn-leaf wrapping. The name is modern, meaning bow-tie, because of the shape in which it's wrapped.
• Locro (from the Quechua ruqru) is a hearty thick stew popular along the Andes mountain range. It one of the national dishes of Argentina and Bolivia.
• Masamora morada, a thick, sweet pudding made from ground purple corn and fruit. Sold in mix form in Peru.
• Mate de coca, a Peruvian tea made from steeped coca leaves. It is commonly sipped by indigenous people living at high altitudes in the Andes to prevent elevation illnesses.
• Pachamanca, stew cooked in a hautía oven;
• Papas a la Huancaína, Peruvian potatoes covered in a spicy, peanut-based sauce called Huancaína (Wan-ka-EE-na) sauce.
• Pataska, spicy stew made from boiled maize, potatoes, and dried meat.
• Ceviche, raw fish marinated in lime juice. One of Peru's national dishes.
• Cancha or tostada, fried golden hominy.
• Llajwa, salsa of Bolivia;
• Llapingachos, mashed-potato cakes from Ecuador;
• Tocosh (Togosh), a traditional Quechua food prepared from fermented potato pulp.

Other South American cultures

• Angu, an indigenous Brazilian type of corn mush
• Arepa, a maize-based bread originating from the indigenous peoples of Colombia and Venezuela
• Bori-bori, a Paraguayan soup with cornmeal dumplings.
• Cauim, a fermented beverage based on maize or manioc broken down by the enzymes of human saliva, traditional to the Tupinambá and other indigenous peoples of Brazil
• Chipa, a wide variety of corn flour or manioc-based breads traditional to Paraguay.
• Curanto, a Chilean stew cooked in an earthen oven originally from the Chono people of Chiloé Island
• Kaguyjy, a Guarani-derived locro corn mush that become part of the national Paraguayan cuisine.
• Kiveve, a sweet or savory dish from Paraguay consisting of pureed pumpkin and other ingredients cooked over a fire.
• Lampreado or payaguá mascada, a starchy, manioc-based fried cake from Paraguay and the northeast of Argentina.
• Lapacho or taheebo, a medicinal tree bark infusion
• Maniçoba, dish of boiled manioc leaves and smoked meat indigenous to the Brazilian Amazon
• Mate (beverage)
• Mbeju, a pan-cooked cake utilizing manioc starch.
• Merken, a ají powder from the Mapuche of Patagonia
• Mocotó, a Brazilian stew with cow's feet, beans, and vegetables.
• Moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew
• Paçoca, from the Tupi "to crumble," describes two different dishes of pulverized ingredients: one with peanuts and sugar, and the other with dried meat, ground manioc, and onion.
• Pamonha, a Brazilian tamale
• Pira caldo, Paraguayan fish soup
• Sopa paraguaya, a corn flour casserole esteemed as the national dish of Paraguay, related to chipa guasu.
• Soyo, shortened from the Guarani name "so’o josopy," a Paraguayan soup based on meat crushed in a mortar.
• Tacacá, a Brazilian stew of tucupi, jambu leaves, and shrimp, typically served in a dried gourd.
• Tereré or ka'ay, a cold-brewed version of yerba mate
• Tucupi, manioc-based broth used in Brazilian dishes such as pato no tucupi and tacacá
• Yerba mate, a tea made from the holly of the same name, derived from Guaraní

Non-animal foodstuffs

Hunted or livestock

Bison cow and calf

Moose