A Delicious Native American Dinner

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Fry Bread with Chokecherry Jelly

Wild Rice and Corn Fritters

Northern Bean and Hominy Soup

My buffalo stew meat purchase went slightly awry, so I had to make a last-minute menu change from the Buffalo Chili I had planned.  I happened to have some lovely Montana-grown great northern beans already, and have wanted to try hominy for some time, so I made Northern Bean and Hominy Soup with Fresh Herbs. I was initially pretty disappointed that I couldn't make the chili I was looking forward to, but the soup I did make turned out to be really delicious. 

The soup was really straightforward - I cooked the beans up ahead of time, so I was able to toss all the ingredients in the soup pot and start work on the fritters and fry bread.

Wild Rice and Corn Fritters

I purchased some wild rice (Mahnomin) from Native Harvest which is part of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, founded by Winona LaDuke of the Anishinaabekwe tribe. The wild rice is hand harvested and wood parched by tribe members.

 The fritters were pretty quick and easy to prepare, and were incredibly good. They also reheated nicely in the oven the next day.

Fry Bread

Fry bread has some negative associations with forced assimilation of Native Americans, as we learned from Sean Sherman. Once tribes were moved onto reservations, they had to depend largely on the government for far less healthy food commodities, as their traditional food systems were severely restrained. Fry bread became a new tradition, using flour, sugar, and fat from the commodities.

Although fry bread has negative associations and has contributed to health issues, it is nonetheless a tradition, and is embraced by many.

I served our fry bread with some chokecherry jelly I bought from Native Harvest, and it complemented it very well. I chose chokecherry jelly because we had a chokecherry tree in my yard growing up, and my mom made jelly from the fruit. It is quite delicious, and prompted me to learn what native history it has.

  

Chokecherries were important to many tribes in the Rocky Mountains and prairies, as a food, medicine, and spiritually. The Blackfoot, Crow, Hidatsa, and Cheyenne used dried chokecherries in pemmican. The berries were also used to make syrups and jellies. The Dakota named July "Chanpa-sapa-wi" which means "Black Cherry Moon" because it is the month that chokecherries are ripe. The bark and berries had medical applications, including head colds and tuberculosis. 

 Foods Indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2016, from http://web.ku.edu/~aihd/foods/chokeberries.html

 The Chokecherry - Ordwipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2016, from https://sites.google.com/a/macalester.edu/ordwipedia/traditional-ecological-knowledge-tek-from-ling-225/the-chokecherry

 The Sioux Chef. (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2016, from http://sioux-chef.com/

 White Earth Land Recovery Project. (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2016, from http://welrp.org/

 Divina, F., Divina, M., & P., H. C. (2004). Foods of the Americas: Native recipes and traditions. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.