Native American Cuisine Old and New

Road Scholar is keeping me busy during April.  At least once a week they have an interesting and informative lecture.  The most recent one was on Native American cuisine, which didn't sound very interesting, but I had nothing else to do, so I watched.  Fascinating!

We look at Native American culture today and think about obesity, diabetes and other major health problems that are rampant on reservations today.  It wasn't always this way.  The earliest period of Native American culture was precontact, before Europeans arrived in North America.  During this period, their diet consisted of corn, beans, chilis, tomatoes, potatoes, vanilla cacao. Yes, they ate berries and nuts and animal protein that they hunted, but for the most part, a very healthy diet. 

The first contact period was when diet and health began to change.  Europeans brought with them sheep, pork, beef, wheat, apples and stone fruits, watermelon and cabbage.  Still, a pretty healthy diet.  It was when the American government came in and started to relocate Native Americans in the mid 20th century that things changed.  Along with relocation came government food.  What did the government send?  Lard, packaged cereals, and many other commodity food items that were not part of the traditional diet.  With that came the creation of Indian fry bread, delicious, but not so healthy.  Over a short period of time Native Americans became the least healthy of all Americans. 

Fast forward to contemporary times, and dieticians and doctors are trying to help individual tribes return to eating habits pre U.S. government.  New diet fuses food from all periods of development, concentrating on corn, squash, potatoes, chilis and bison.  Food is Medicine is the slogan that everyone is trying to promote.

Have you ever seen a Native American restaurant in your town?  Probably not.  I know that there are a few around, probably in areas where local tribes reside.  It is probably the most underrepresented and misunderstood food culture I can think of.  As Americans are always looking for something new and interesting to eat, my guess is that over time Native American restaurants will start to pop up in urban cities.  Other than fry bread, I don't think I've ever eaten anything from that culture.  I would love to try some of their foods.  Road Scholar has a program in Taos  and Santa Fe that does just that.