The Forgotten Cuisine

Then there is the food that arose from what Frank calls the third phase of Native American culinary history—the reservation experience. Deprived of most of their lands, Native Americans became dependent on federal rations, which often took the form of lard, flour, and processed sugar. With these, they made fry bread, which has become the food most associated with American Indian cuisine. Depending on how much sugar is added, it can taste like a slightly richer version of Indian (not Native American) paratha or something almost as decadent as state-fair elephant ears.

Fry bread, which is not good for you, to say the least, has contributed to a widespread health crisis among Native Americans. About 33 percent of American Indians and Alaskan Natives are obese, and more than 16 percent suffer from type 2 diabetes—rates far higher than are found in the general population. Ojibwa Indian musician Keith Secola, who penned an ironic ode to the dish, has said, admittedly with some hyperbole, that fry bread “has killed more Indians than the federal government.”

But what does all this history add up to today? In other words, just what is Native American cooking? When I pose the question to Loretta Barrett Oden—who opened the Corn Dance Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1993 and is considered a pioneer of new Native American cuisine—she repeats it back to me: “That’s the question, isn’t it? Just what the hell is Native American food?

“To me,” Oden continues, “it’s working with indigenous foods of the Americas, precontact. My food is straightforward. At the Corn Dance Café, we served wood-grilled bison tenderloin with sage au jus. A lot of indigenous foods over wood fires.” Oden doesn’t cook fry bread. “I don’t consider that Native American at all,” she says. But the food doesn’t have to be simple to be authentic, she adds. “Nephi comes from a French culinary background, and like him I’ll do reductions and sauces. Coming from the Native tradition, we have the ingredients to do haute cuisine.”

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