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138 9 A New American Indian Cuisine “does anyone know how to start a fire?” she shouted. At first I thought the question a bit bizarre, considering we were standing outside, amid the juniper woods at the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Surely people in this neck of the woods knew how to start a fire. Lois Ellen Frank was standing there in her chef whites in the late morning New Mexico sun, looking for anyone that would build and ignite a fire so that she and the other American Indian chefs could proceed with some over-the-fire cooking. Lois was cocoordinating a large food-related gathering and didn’t have time to start the fire herself. After 48 years of pit roasting with my family, countless campfires, time spent in the military, and just being a kid, I knew a little something about starting cooking fires. I quickly volunteered and got to work. Lois Ellen Frank, Loretta Oden, Walter Whitewater, and several other American Indian chefs, food activists, writers, academics, and food producers were part of a gathering sponsored partly by Slow Food USA’s Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) symposium at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) campus outside of Santa Fe. This meeting was only one among several devoted to identifying producers across the country that are hanging on to or reviving foods and foodways that have been present in North America for the last several generations. Many of these food traditions are inevi- A New American Indian Cuisine 139 tably American Indian in origin, using ingredients native to North American landscapes. Lois and the others were present not only to participate in the day and a half of dialogue but also to offer up tastings of some of these foods. Some of the foods served included quinoa falafel, puffed quinoa, flourless chocolate torte, chili-honey glazed quail, cedar-planked salmon, and my personal favorite of the day, mole negro. I have always mentioned to anyone within earshot that mole is nearest to the type of intricate foods that Mesoamericans consumed when Europeans first floundered their way into North America. Mole is a complex dish fully representative of the landscape and agricultural system cultivated by Central Americans. The list of ingredients and the numerous steps involved in producing even a simple mole are multifaceted enough to cause any culinary student to pause. Why then, Lois Ellen Frank asks, are American Indian foods not considered a cuisine equal to that of French, Italian, and Asian? Lois has made this question her mission, which has led to a colorful food-oriented book full of recipes and soon to her completed dissertation and PhD focusing on the subject. Some might regard Figure 9.1 Rarámuri squashes behind Gabriel Molina’s home, Norogachi , Chihuahua, Mexico. 140 eating the landscape the unique preparatory steps, agriculture, harvesting, and even eating , devoted to preparing foods such as corn, a cuisine unique to North America. In essence, this is cuisine. At one level, posole is simply a stew of corn, spices, and sometimes bits of meat, depending on the region and even the family that is preparing the dish. Approached with preparation in mind, posole requires a specified manner of first growing a certain type of corn hybridized over centuries to fit the tastes that Native people have come to appreciate in a bowl of posole. As a result, posole is also the kind of corn that is used in the preparation of the dish. The term activates a mental blend in the minds of people culturally familiar with this kind of food. Posole preparation employs dried hominy corn that has had its hulls removed. The corn is soaked in water overnight. The next day, the corn is placed in a cooking pot that cannot be metal, or at least it must be an enameled pot. This requirement is essential to the process because the step involves the addition of culinary ash, which reacts negatively to metal. Culinary ash is the white ash left over from the complete burning of certain types of woods. Depending on the culture and on what foods are being prepared, the ash may be from saltbush, juniper, or even bean plants. The lye and alkali present in the ash have a way of making the niacin present in the corn available for the human digestive process and also change the corn’s color and consistency. After boiling for about 5 hours, the hominy is cooled...

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