Native American food preparation and cooking

Tribes affected: Pantribal

Significance: Cooking techniques among indigenous North American peoples varied according to whether a tribe was mobile or sedentary and whether it used pottery

Most foods in traditional North American Indian cuisines were eaten cooked. While a few, such as animal livers and berries, commonly were eaten raw, the rest were transformed through techniques constrained by the available ingredients, technology, and energy sources.

The greatest constraints surrounded heat for cooking. Much of North America had plentiful wood supplies, though parts of the arid West and the Arctic were deficient. Wood typically was burned in an open fire, with food or cooking vessels suspended over it or buried in its coals. Flat rocks could be used as griddles. Sometimes, especially in the East, the fire was made in a pit and covered with dirt, forming a slow-cooking earth oven (aboveground ovens were not used anywhere). The masonry bread oven of the Pueblos was introduced by the Spanish. While ceramic pots could be exposed to fire, skin and bark vessels would burn up. Tribes who made only the latter had to heat liquids in them by adding hot stones, never obtaining more than a low simmer.

These factors meant that the more mobile tribes, most of whom made little or no pottery, were quite limited in their cooking techniques, especially if they lived in an area with limited fuel. The Washoe, for example, prepared most of their food by simmering ground seeds and tubers, often mixed with greens, meat, berries, or whatever was available. Other foods were wrapped in leaves and roasted in the coals.

Sedentary tribes usually made pottery, and they could exploit full boiling. The Wampanoag, for example, ate primarily stews and gruels, based on cornmeal with various additions. Biscuits were made on rock griddles, and dumplings were made from leaf-wrapped dough. Meat often was roasted on racks above a fire, while vegetables usually were roasted in the coals.

Desert agriculturalists of the Southwest had a special problem: dense populations with limited fuel. There, the Pima developed sautéing as an adjunct to boiling, baking, and roasting. Sautéing is quick and conserves fuel, but it requires a fat that will not burn easily, as will most animal fats. The Pima grew cotton and extracted oil from its seeds, using it for sautéing and seasoning. The Pueblo Indians had no cotton from which to extract oil, but they developed other fuel-saving practices. Stews and soups, the most common meals, were cooked in large pots for an entire extended family, then ladled into individual serving bowls. Some dishes, like paper-thin piki bread, cooked almost immediately.

Without refrigeration, storing food became a major challenge, and drying was most commonly used. Some foodstuffs, such as beans and corn, dry easily and well, while others pose greater difficulties. Fish and meat require a smoky fire to produce a nonperishable product, and the resultant taste became a flavoring for other dishes. Indeed, eating large chunks of meat was unusual, and most tribes used meats to complement the plant seasonings collected and cultivated. Pemmican, a tasty mixture of dried meat, berries, and fat, was widely used in the East.

Every tribe had distinctive rules surrounding cooking and eating. Some foods were taboo, while others were relished. Certain foods might be eaten politely only with the hands, while others required the use of spoons or leaf scoops. Many tribes offered a prayer before eating. These and other social conventions made eating an event with cultural, as well as nutritional, significance.