Why Isn’t Native American Food Hip?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
- Potatoes
- Salmon
- Tomatoes
- Chocolate
- Corn / hominy
- Bison (less common, but it's not something I'd think of as "native american food"
If I got served grilled salmon with potatoes and cornbread at a "normal American" restaurant, it's not something you'd think of as Native American food, but it would be totally new-world sourced. Obviously there are losses in recipes / preparation / traditions, but it's not unrecognizable.
Though, I suppose they are awesome enough that they became tradition pretty quickly.
Authentic is interesting the first few times, but if you take that authentic and mix it up well, you can get a much better end product. (the story did not that the chef tried this, and had complaints, imo the conplaints are from people who wanted to try our authentic - so he should have had both on his menu).
It has piqued my interest though, I think I'll see what traditional recipes I can find online and give them a go :-)
Food is like code, keep updating, or lose out to someone who does.
Most of your customers probably don't know the relevant tradition, and if it didn't seem a complete novelty, it would seem like a twist on something familiar to them (because you'd be backing out later twists that the customer was used to.)
OTOH, even if you did add your own twist to it, it would still be a new base to work from.
If I were to ask someone to name an American they might say Taylor Swift, or Barack Obama. If I asked someone to name an Australian they might name Kylie Minogue or Hugh Jackman.Outside of a history book, how often are the native people associated with these countries?
We'll lose these cultures completely if we don't start sharing them. And what better way than food!
Most people live in cities, and likely their only contact with large groups of Native Americans involves tribes lucky enough to have a reservation nearby where a casino can flourish. It's still a bitter ongoing thing in rural areas, where we take their children and send them to boarding schools for most of their childhood, robbing them of a family experience and robbing the community of good paying jobs and opportunities.
This probably isn't the right place for this, but I grew up in the same town as one of these schools, and the more I learn the more ridiculous it is. They are a Catholic charity so don't have to reveal their spending, they've had multiple scandals for lying on donation requests, basically everyone running it is rich and white. Yet no one seems to care.
The traditional dishes are typically bland, and are very simple with not much room for improvement. Looking good on paper isn't really enough to launch a culinary trend.
Mutton is too strong tasting
Elk is hard to come by
Fry Bread is greasy
Chicos (smoked corn) is impossible to find outside the four corners
Navajo Cake is like a weird sweet tamale
Piñon nuts are expensive and seasonal.
Lamb & mutton aren’t very popular in the US. In my experience, people who are used to beef expect lamb to be more or less like beef—and since beef definitely should not taste like lamb, they end up thinking lamb has an “off” taste and dismiss it without letting it stand on its own merits.
Thankfully here around San Francisco there are some butchers where you can source good lamb, and the ethnic cuisines include enough lamb that local Westerners are perhaps a bit more accustomed to it.
But that's a cottage pie then.
Like, what do they think the word shepherd means in this context?
Nothing. I've always thought it was just a weird name for it, honestly. Shepherd nearly always brings up images of a man with his sheep - or maybe goats, if I'm stretching it. More often, I think folks don't give it a second thought nor consider its origin.
Not really. Lamb and mutton are generally expensive meats and can be more difficult to find since the major chains tend not to carry them.
I once had a shepherd's pie in the US that was made with beef!
I didn't realize it was suppposed to have lamb until I was older - I grew up thinking it was a beef meal.
Presumably because they weren't able to source any lamb at all.
This rings true. I grew up eating a lot of quasi-traditional syrian food, both from my grandmother (1st generation in the US) and at church (Eastern Orthodox with a good amount of the service in arabic, and some folks that didn't speak english). Traditionally, these were made with lamb, but I had always eaten them with beef because that was what was available/affordable and folks got used to it.
Mutton and goat are extremely rare.
Having eaten both I say "good!"
Navajo aren't really a good example of "Native American" for cuisine purposes (although things like fry bread probably are the most recognizable instances of Native American cuisine for the general public).
The Navajo are fairly recent arrivals to the American Southwest, they are Athabascan in origin and likely not far removed from East Asia.
The Navajo arrived in the American Southwest from Canada/Alaska in the late 1300/ early 1400's. And the Spanish arrived to the area not much more than 100 years later bringing horses, sheep and European crops which were adapted to some extent by the natives.
Contrast that with groups like the Hopi or other Pueblo tribes who are descendants of peoples with thousands of years history in the area and who farmed native crops such as corn and squash for many many generations before the first Navajo (or Navajo ancestor to be proper) ever set foot in the area.
Point being, Navajo food isn't really Native American food much behind the level of Tacos. There was significant European influence during most of the time Navajo culture developed.
I think a lot of "real" Native American cuisine was probably something like berries and dried meat mixed with fat wrapped in a piece of skin. Or some inner pine bark if times were rough. Except for the farming tribes that had little bitty corn and some primitive squash. Probably not really that tasty IMOP.
Short story - $145/$250 with wine
Journey - $245/$375 with wine and must be ordered by the entire table
Maybe price has something to do with the lack of popularity.
Link to Kai menu: http://c12d8f7925c6939ef765-69128410dff90197ed724116b2713034...
Kind of a chicken and egg problem, it would seem.
I wake up on an engineered spring mattress, in a climate-controlled bedroom. I take a shower, brush my teeth, and apply deodorant to my pits. I brew coffee. I drive. I email. And so on.
Food is not food. There are all kinds. They vary in taste, in expense, and in healthfulness. Your comment could be used to bash different musical tastes just the same.
Edit: Guess it hit someone close to home. Thanks for contributing no feedback other than hitting the "I don't like this post" button, really makes debugging easier /s
(Or rather, the question doesn't make much sense, as humans are part of nature too. We don't judge what's natural for us by what's natural for aardvarks and lions, because we have different build and faculties than aardvarks and lions do).