Talk:Indigenous cuisine of the Americas/Archive 1

Archive 1

Cuisine definition?

I feel the title of this article is somewhat misleading. The term cuisine, as defined by Wikipedia, is "a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a place of origin." Native American cuisine subsumes a huge variety of practices, locales, cultures, and a vast historical period- furthermore, it is NOT specific, but general, not a tradition, but a huge number of traditions, and with no specific origin, but perhaps many. What about a "Native American Foods" or "Culinary Practices of the Indigenous People of the Americas" title? Just a thought- if anyone else takes it seriously I'll move the article, but otherwise I will leave it as it is. TriNotch 00:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia you can write yourself so definitions of cuisine was written b y someone else duh 160.7.26.85 (talk) 21:27, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I also added a whole lot of other things. TriNotch 00:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe cuisine should be pluralized into cuisines instead? Asarelah 04:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think TriNotch's point is good: there is no Native American cuisine. Even given that there were many similar developments on US reservations across the country in modern times (such as frybread eaten by several unrelated ethnic groups), these modern developments are not completely pervasive (partly because not all Indians had reservations). Hopefully, there will one day be several articles on different American cuisines instead of this article covering such a large and diverse range of cuisines. But, thatll take a lot of research. This article is just a start. – ishwar  (speak) 01:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

crops

the article does not make clear that many peoples did not do much crop cultivation and instead gathered wild plants. I added many plants eaten by Apaches, but all of the plants were not domesticated or farmed. Anyway, either a distinction must be made between farmed plants and gathered plants or the article should be changed to reflect that the plants are not all crop plants. – ishwar  (speak) 01:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I think the lists of foodstuffs at the end are very bulky and should be divided. Besides diving wild plants and game from cultivated plants and domesticated livestock, I also think they should be divided by region... Obviously, Mapuche in Patagonia were not using maple syrup and Tlingit in Alaska were not using pineapples. Distinctions should also be made between native New World species and introduced Old World species, and perhaps plants could be further divided into groups like fruits/vegetables, grains/cereals/seeds/nuts, seasonings/spices/herbs/sweeteners, etc. --216.164.136.201 (talk) 06:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Onions?

Did the Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations use onions? I keep finding conflicting sources that either the Spanish introduced the onion to the New World, or the Aztecs grew onions among their other crops. I know that Canada and the United States have some native wild onion species, but not sure about Mexico and south. If so, what species did they use? --207.172.193.50 (talk) 11:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

On the upper Ohio Valley a small wild onion can be found and cooked in a clay pot with beans and the "Old Timer" tomato. This is a very old local tomato that is very large and juicy, and more hardy. Needles to say, the little wild onion is a bit stronger than domesticated onions. Sometimes Kanawha Valley fresh water mussels were added to the pot. These "Kentucky Runner" beens were sun dried and stored for the coming season. Bacon replaced racoon (only used after several heavy frosts) which tastes a lot like Canadian Bacon. The 18th century fur traders called this dried been when fried with bacon in their iron skillet called "leather breeches." The ramp is found in the highlands of the Allegheny Mountains (W. Va. Canawagh people) and was also used with the beens and corn. Bread was fried in the skillet, after the leather breeches was removed and this was like a pan of cornbread, if not making a cornbread it's self. The early fur trappers called this skillet bread "bannick." There are two kinds of roots that one is like a potato and the other is like a ram and I was corrected when I called it a "sweet potato" by a fellow some time ago. Cattail lobes can be smashed and made into a potato cake if that wild "potato" is not found up hallow called mushytata. Wild mint along creek banks (like double mint) can be used to flavor the mushytata, sometimes with ground butternut added. This was during the fireside cabin culture acculturation period on the upper Ohio Valley. Richard Hakluyt is one of the earlier who reported on Native American foods of the Virginias which at that time included the upper Carolinas. There are early reports of "wild flour" and "wild rice," but I don't know of any wild rice on the upper Ohio Valley. Conaughy (talk) 19:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC) I miss read your question about Aztecs, apologies, I don't know those people. Maybe the Kanawhan dried beans, onion or ramp and fresh water mussels can be added to Native American dishes from the Kanawha Valley. Conaughy (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)