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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

What Makes A Native American Restaurant

Native american restaurants
- living authenticity

In spite of their very complex history Native American Indians managed to preserve their traditions in cooking, many of them are proud of their food traditions. Life is going on, but their culture and their cuisine have not disappeared. Each time they prepare food as their ancestors did, they stick to these traditions. They listened to their elders, and learned as much as they could, so they were able to pass these ways onto their own children and shared them with people of outside communities as well.

In spite of their very complex history Native American Indians managed to preserve their traditions in cooking, many of them are proud of their food traditions. Life is going on, but their culture and their cuisine have not disappeared. Each time they prepare food as their ancestors did, they stick to these traditions. They listened to their elders, and learned as much as they could, so they were able to pass these ways onto their own children and shared them with people of outside communities as well.

What is native american restaurants food? It all depends on the location. Mainly it could be possible to distinguish five main areas: the Southwest, the Pacific Cost, the Great Plaint, the North East and the South. Generally, Indians eat the same things anyone else in their area eats, with slightly more emphasis on natural products of the area (due to economic necessity). In various regions you may encounter versatile uses of corn, wild berries, deer, sheep, wild rice, or seafood.

But for many native Americans the most important ingredients are corn, beans and squash, this triad called the Three Sisters. This trinity of food has a variety of names through out the Indian country, but the three staples remain the heart of many Indigenous diets.

Among popular native americans restaurants, dishes one could certainly mention: Pumpkin-corn sauce, baked sweet potatoes, cranberry corn bread, etc, but the most popular are still Indian taco and fry bread.

Utah claims to be the home of the Navajo Taco. Originally known as Navajo Tacos, but since Native American tribes other than the Navajo Nation have also adopted these as their own, they obtained the universal name of Indian Taco. Indian Tacos are a combination of beans or ground beef, chopped lettuce, sliced tomato, shredded cheddar cheese. At the Native American restaurants Indian Taco is usually served with fry bread.

Fried bread is always on the menu at the native american restaurants. It is a relatively recent invention in the Native American diet. When the Dakota tribes encountered explorers in the late 1600s, they gave the men gifts of the grains they grew and gathered, these are corn and wild rice, meant to be boiled and eaten as gruel, not for bread. But eventually a new word for bread crept into the Dakota language - aguyap, or "they burn it" after the flatbreads that were baked by soldiers or voyageurs at camp sites. During the late nineteenth century when native Americans were confined to reservations, they were given staple foods like flour, baking powder, powdered milk, and lard. At first they made a bannock-like bread that was quickly mixed, then baked in the oven. Later, they rolled the dough out, cut it into squares or shaped it into circles, and fried it.

But it would be an incomplete list of the most popular native american restaurants dishes without mentioning an ice cream (Kulfi) made from milk flavoured with either pistachio, almond or mango. It is of course served frozen and like most Indian desserts is fairly sweet.

These dishes one could taste at the great American restaurants.

Where would you go to eat Native American food?

2 comments:

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  2. Very interesting post along with assisting information regarding American restaurant and restaurants near jasper. Restaurants classified or distinguished in many different ways. The factors are usually the food itself, the cuisine like Italian, Chinese, Japanese, American, French, Mexican and Thai.

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