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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 c

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.
    - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
      It may be, but folks tend not to call it that.
      - gaius 9y ago
        That's fascinating. I would expect Americans to call a beef version of a shepherd's pie a cowboy pie. Like, what do they think the word shepherd means in this context?
        chrisseaton 9y ago
        Yeah, as a British person I never thought I'd have to be indignant about my national cuisine being so misunderstood.
        chongli 9y ago
        Cowboy pie sounds too much like cow pie for my liking. That probably has something to do with it never becoming a term.
        chrisseaton 9y ago
        What would be wrong with cow pie? I would have thought beef pie would be very popular in the US?
        detaro 9y ago
        a "cow pie" is cow droppings - manure.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  > Americans don't eat a lot of lamb or mutton at all do they? 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.
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  Lamb is not nearly as common as chicken, pork, beef or even turkey, but it is available--total production at the same order of magnitude as duck. Mutton and goat are extremely rare.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    "Mutton and goat are extremely rare." Having eaten both I say "good!"
velodrome 9y ago
According to Navajo tradition, frybread was created in 1864 using the flour, sugar, salt and lard that was given to them by the United States government when the Navajo, who were living in Arizona, were forced to make the 300-mile journey known as the "Long Walk" and relocate to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico onto land that could not easily support their traditional staples of vegetables and beans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Exactly. 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.

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.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    It may be, but folks tend not to call it that.
    - gaius 9y ago
      That's fascinating. I would expect Americans to call a beef version of a shepherd's pie a cowboy pie. Like, what do they think the word shepherd means in this context?
      - chrisseaton 9y ago
        Yeah, as a British person I never thought I'd have to be indignant about my national cuisine being so misunderstood.
      - chongli 9y ago
        Cowboy pie sounds too much like cow pie for my liking. That probably has something to do with it never becoming a term.
        chrisseaton 9y ago
        What would be wrong with cow pie? I would have thought beef pie would be very popular in the US?
        detaro 9y ago
        a "cow pie" is cow droppings - manure.
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
> Americans don't eat a lot of lamb or mutton at all do they? 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.
bradleyjg 9y ago
Lamb is not nearly as common as chicken, pork, beef or even turkey, but it is available--total production at the same order of magnitude as duck. Mutton and goat are extremely rare.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  "Mutton and goat are extremely rare." Having eaten both I say "good!"

velodrome 9y ago

According to Navajo tradition, frybread was created in 1864 using the flour, sugar, salt and lard that was given to them by the United States government when the Navajo, who were living in Arizona, were forced to make the 300-mile journey known as the "Long Walk" and relocate to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico onto land that could not easily support their traditional staples of vegetables and beans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread

mythrwy 9y ago
Exactly. 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.