Native American Food and Cuisine

When people think of Native American cuisine, they often think of the traditional Thanksgiving fare: turkey, cranberries, corn, etc. While all of these ingredients are important to traditional Native American cooking, there's more to Native American food that what most Americans enjoy for Thanksgiving dinner.

The diets of Native Americans traditionally included foodsnative to the tribes' regions. Thus, the tribes of the East might have eaten foods quite different from the tribes of the South or the West.

The mainstay of many Native American meals, however, was fish and game. Native Americans living in the Great Plains often ate buffalo, antelope and deer, and the tribes living along the coast took much of their nutrients from the sea. In the east, Native Americans dined on clams, mussels, lobster and cod. In the Northwest, Native Americans caught salmon and halibut, which they often filleted and smoked over open fires.

Often, Native Americans used local ingredients to prepare thick soups or stews, which they would typically eat with their fingers. They also cooked bread, often made from ground cornmeal and water, which they would eat with most meals.

Native Americans were hunters and gatherers, often going on long journeys to search for provisions to last them through the winter. One of the foods they carried with them on these journeys was pemmican, a concentrated, high-energy paste made from dried meat, fat and berries.

 

Many of the foods the Native American Indians ate hundreds of years ago have become part of what we consider to be American cuisine. Most Americans eat foods that were common to the Native American diet, including:

Today, chefs are even experimenting with Native American cuisine and are attempting to bring it into the world of fine dining. On some restaurant menus, you'll see Native American food mixed with contemporary cooking techniques.

Want to bring some Native American food into your house? Get started with this easy recipe: