7 ms·

Why Isn’t Native American Food Hip?

38 points by dpc59 9y ago

rjbwork 9y ago
I would love to try Native American food, but there does not appear to be anything in my area (Atlanta) that serves it. Kind of a chicken and egg problem, it would seem.
adultSwim 9y ago
Genocide?
bpodgursky 9y ago
As a lot of the comments on the Atlantic article point out, a ton of new-world foods are so embedded in the American diet now that we don't even think about them - 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.
- maga 9y ago
  Fun fact: corn and cornbread is so embedded in the cuisine of the North Caucasians[1] that it's perceived by locals as historically theirs as opposed to wheat and white bread that is thought of as "Russian". Older, less-educated locals don't even believe when you tell them it had been imported from America just few hundred years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Caucasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Caucasus
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    I've known people from India to react in disbelief to the idea that chili peppers historically didn't exist in India (or anywhere in Asia).
    - taejo 9y ago
      Same in Ethiopia.
  - geon 9y ago
    Nothing feels more traditionally Swedish than Strawberries with sugar and milk on a hot summer day. But strawberries didn't even exist until the 1750s. Though, I suppose they are awesome enough that they became tradition pretty quickly.
    - uzoodoo 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure wild strawberries existed in Europe before, they were just smaller but just as good https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midsommarb%C3%A4r.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midsommarb%C3%A4r.jp...
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Don't forget squash and tomato. (And after dinner a a cigerrete of course).
  - BerislavLopac 9y ago
    And chocolate.
marak830 9y ago
(note: head chef here). Most of my customers don't want traditional. They want something with a twist, or a full fusion. 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 :-)
- chrismcb 9y ago
  This is why I dislike most restaurants. The chef always feels the need to run a dish by adding some sort of "twist"
  - marak830 9y ago
    I use to be like that, try and run traditional only, and I lost a lot of customers to people who would update dishes. Food is like code, keep updating, or lose out to someone who does.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Most of my customers don't want traditional. 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.
  - marak830 9y ago
    Yes and no. Some do, and those that Doe know the traditional are more likely to leave recipes(imho), so now I run a dual system. I'll offer the fish as both traditional, or the 'restaurant name' special version to add a twist. (As long as it's not adding too much overhead to my chef's, if it is, I'll drop whichever one i think isn't as good).
rootsudo 9y ago
Really don't care. Food is food and to pay markup for flair, location, vibe, history, assortment, arrangement, reservation for daily substance is against nature.
- function_seven 9y ago
  I spend most of my days doing things against nature. 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.
- twic 9y ago
  You're doing it completely wrong. Eating good food is a leisure activity.
  - jungletek 9y ago
    Hey maybe they enjoy their Soylent and flavorless nutrient blocks! 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
- coldtea 9y ago
  Installing ramps for disabled people instead of letting them crawl or die, is also against nature. (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).
batbomb 9y ago
Well, for Navajo food: 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.
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  Americans don't eat a lot of lamb or mutton at all do they? I once had a shepherd's pie in the US that was made with beef! Presumably because they weren't able to source any lamb at all.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    Growing up(Toronto area of Canada) we always just called cottage pie shepherds pie.
    - jhbadger 9y ago
      And in Quebec, pâté chinois. Although that one really makes no sense -- there's nothing at all like it in Chinese cuisine!
  - evincarofautumn 9y ago
    American shepherd’s pie tends to comprise ground beef, corn, and mashed potatoes, sometimes with the addition of other veggies (peas, carrots) and cheese. Using lamb would generally be considered unusual. 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.
    - chrisseaton 9y ago
      > American shepherd’s pie tends to comprise ground beef, corn, and mashed potatoes, sometimes with the addition of other veggies (peas, carrots) and cheese. Using lamb would generally be considered unusual. But that's a cottage pie then.
williamstein 9y ago
I always wonder about this. Many Navajo people I know view the whole idea of selling traditional native foods to the general population as basically selling out, and just fundamentally won't do it. There are s lot of restaurants and stands on the reservation though (and at events) which target natives. I recently heard my mother in law (who is Navajo and a cook for her job) tell me her work regularly tries to get her to make Navajo food (which is very good) but she absolutely refuses. Nstives have strong views about protecting their culture and view everything from food to religion to music as a part of that...
- nthcolumn 9y ago
  They think that if they share it / sell out that it will be somehow changed or diluted and ultimately lost? That is probably 100% correct. This is the first defensible argument for closed source I have ever heard. I came to say I was surprised the company used the the term 'Indian' taco but maybe that is better than say 'Navajo-style' taco which might just become Navajo-taco. The term 'Indian' is not useful generally. That taco looks so tasty.
  - williamstein 9y ago
    Yes, if you try to see things from their perspective, regarding how they have been treated over the centuries, it makes sense. Regarding closed source -- my wife is teaching a class on indigenous intellectual property in the iSchool at Univ of Washington right now, and it is mostly about protecting traditional knowledge from exploitation. A lot of what she says and her perspectives takes me a while to process, since I'm a big open source software advocate (e.g., I founded SageMath).
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
  That's too bad. 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!
CPLX 9y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say because it doesn't taste very good. I lived in Colorado for years and spent a lot of time in and around the four corners area, Shiprock, Kayenta, Monument Valley, etc. 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.
- romeinaday 9y ago
  South American native food is equally bad.
Fomite 9y ago
Ironically, for those that live in DC, one of the great open secrets is that if you're on the National Mall, by far one of the best places to eat is the National Museum of the American Indian.
- jhbadger 9y ago
  I think it was better ten years ago or so, though. I had a visitor recently and I took him there and it was just okay, but I remember when it really used to be one of the best places around.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
All the ethnic cuisines aren't actually that old, and the period that they range from has been full of mass migration, cultural genocide, and actual genocide. 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.
rfrey 9y ago
For Toronto folks reading this, an Anishinaabe restaurant called NishDish just opened on Bloor. It's quite tasty, about 10-15 dollars for a meal.
c517402 9y ago
Kai restaurant in Phoenix has the following the following 2 tasting menu options. 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.r44.cf1.rackcdn.com/lps/assets/u/kai_dinner_Spring-2017.pdf http://c12d8f7925c6939ef765-69128410dff90197ed724116b2713034...
pinaceae 9y ago
Because strong spices never reached them?
smoyer 9y ago
When our family visits the Smithsonian Institute, one of our favorite places to eat is "Mitsitam Cafe" [0] which serves a variety of authentic native american foods. [0] http://nmai.si.edu/visit/washington/mitsitam-cafe/ http://nmai.si.edu/visit/washington/mitsitam-cafe/

38 points by dpc59 9y ago

I would love to try Native American food, but there does not appear to be anything in my area (Atlanta) that serves it. Kind of a chicken and egg problem, it would seem.

adultSwim 9y ago

Genocide?

bpodgursky 9y ago

As a lot of the comments on the Atlantic article point out, a ton of new-world foods are so embedded in the American diet now that we don't even think about them - 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.

maga 9y ago
Fun fact: corn and cornbread is so embedded in the cuisine of the North Caucasians[1] that it's perceived by locals as historically theirs as opposed to wheat and white bread that is thought of as "Russian". Older, less-educated locals don't even believe when you tell them it had been imported from America just few hundred years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Caucasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Caucasus
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  I've known people from India to react in disbelief to the idea that chili peppers historically didn't exist in India (or anywhere in Asia).
  - taejo 9y ago
    Same in Ethiopia.
- geon 9y ago
  Nothing feels more traditionally Swedish than Strawberries with sugar and milk on a hot summer day. But strawberries didn't even exist until the 1750s. Though, I suppose they are awesome enough that they became tradition pretty quickly.
  - uzoodoo 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure wild strawberries existed in Europe before, they were just smaller but just as good https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midsommarb%C3%A4r.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Midsommarb%C3%A4r.jp...
mythrwy 9y ago
Don't forget squash and tomato. (And after dinner a a cigerrete of course).
- BerislavLopac 9y ago
  And chocolate.

marak830 9y ago

(note: head chef here). Most of my customers don't want traditional. They want something with a twist, or a full fusion. 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 :-)

chrismcb 9y ago
This is why I dislike most restaurants. The chef always feels the need to run a dish by adding some sort of "twist"
- marak830 9y ago
  I use to be like that, try and run traditional only, and I lost a lot of customers to people who would update dishes. Food is like code, keep updating, or lose out to someone who does.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Most of my customers don't want traditional. 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.
- marak830 9y ago
  Yes and no. Some do, and those that Doe know the traditional are more likely to leave recipes(imho), so now I run a dual system. I'll offer the fish as both traditional, or the 'restaurant name' special version to add a twist. (As long as it's not adding too much overhead to my chef's, if it is, I'll drop whichever one i think isn't as good).

rootsudo 9y ago

Really don't care. Food is food and to pay markup for flair, location, vibe, history, assortment, arrangement, reservation for daily substance is against nature.

function_seven 9y ago
I spend most of my days doing things against nature. 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.
twic 9y ago
You're doing it completely wrong. Eating good food is a leisure activity.
- jungletek 9y ago
  Hey maybe they enjoy their Soylent and flavorless nutrient blocks! 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
coldtea 9y ago
Installing ramps for disabled people instead of letting them crawl or die, is also against nature. (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).

batbomb 9y ago

Well, for Navajo food: 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.

chrisseaton 9y ago
Americans don't eat a lot of lamb or mutton at all do they? I once had a shepherd's pie in the US that was made with beef! Presumably because they weren't able to source any lamb at all.
- sanswork 9y ago
  Growing up(Toronto area of Canada) we always just called cottage pie shepherds pie.
  - jhbadger 9y ago
    And in Quebec, pâté chinois. Although that one really makes no sense -- there's nothing at all like it in Chinese cuisine!
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  American shepherd’s pie tends to comprise ground beef, corn, and mashed potatoes, sometimes with the addition of other veggies (peas, carrots) and cheese. Using lamb would generally be considered unusual. 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.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    > American shepherd’s pie tends to comprise ground beef, corn, and mashed potatoes, sometimes with the addition of other veggies (peas, carrots) and cheese. Using lamb would generally be considered unusual. But that's a cottage pie then.

williamstein 9y ago

I always wonder about this. Many Navajo people I know view the whole idea of selling traditional native foods to the general population as basically selling out, and just fundamentally won't do it. There are s lot of restaurants and stands on the reservation though (and at events) which target natives. I recently heard my mother in law (who is Navajo and a cook for her job) tell me her work regularly tries to get her to make Navajo food (which is very good) but she absolutely refuses. Nstives have strong views about protecting their culture and view everything from food to religion to music as a part of that...

nthcolumn 9y ago
They think that if they share it / sell out that it will be somehow changed or diluted and ultimately lost? That is probably 100% correct. This is the first defensible argument for closed source I have ever heard. I came to say I was surprised the company used the the term 'Indian' taco but maybe that is better than say 'Navajo-style' taco which might just become Navajo-taco. The term 'Indian' is not useful generally. That taco looks so tasty.
- williamstein 9y ago
  Yes, if you try to see things from their perspective, regarding how they have been treated over the centuries, it makes sense. Regarding closed source -- my wife is teaching a class on indigenous intellectual property in the iSchool at Univ of Washington right now, and it is mostly about protecting traditional knowledge from exploitation. A lot of what she says and her perspectives takes me a while to process, since I'm a big open source software advocate (e.g., I founded SageMath).
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
That's too bad. 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!

CPLX 9y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and say because it doesn't taste very good. I lived in Colorado for years and spent a lot of time in and around the four corners area, Shiprock, Kayenta, Monument Valley, etc. 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.

romeinaday 9y ago
South American native food is equally bad.

Fomite 9y ago

Ironically, for those that live in DC, one of the great open secrets is that if you're on the National Mall, by far one of the best places to eat is the National Museum of the American Indian.

jhbadger 9y ago
I think it was better ten years ago or so, though. I had a visitor recently and I took him there and it was just okay, but I remember when it really used to be one of the best places around.

boomboomsubban 9y ago

All the ethnic cuisines aren't actually that old, and the period that they range from has been full of mass migration, cultural genocide, and actual genocide. 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.

rfrey 9y ago

For Toronto folks reading this, an Anishinaabe restaurant called NishDish just opened on Bloor. It's quite tasty, about 10-15 dollars for a meal.

c517402 9y ago

Kai restaurant in Phoenix has the following the following 2 tasting menu options. 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.r44.cf1.rackcdn.com/lps/assets/u/kai_dinner_Spring-2017.pdf http://c12d8f7925c6939ef765-69128410dff90197ed724116b2713034...

pinaceae 9y ago

Because strong spices never reached them?

smoyer 9y ago

When our family visits the Smithsonian Institute, one of our favorite places to eat is "Mitsitam Cafe" [0] which serves a variety of authentic native american foods. [0] http://nmai.si.edu/visit/washington/mitsitam-cafe/ http://nmai.si.edu/visit/washington/mitsitam-cafe/