Tradition on the table: creating meals with a sense of history, place and gratitude led two chefs to an award-winning cookbook and a reawakening of their own heritage - Native Intelligence

Natural Health, March, 2004 by Thea Singer

the gift of corn

Particular reverence is paid to corn, which is often embraced as "mother," meaning nurturer or sustainer. Songs are sung and offerings made when the seeds are first pressed into the ground. "Corn is one of the few foods that was given to humans and is totally dependent on humans," explains Frank. "You can't grow it without cultivation."

While researching her master's thesis for a degree in cultural anthropology from the University of New Mexico, Frank ranged up and down the mountains of Mexico searching for the history of this sustenance, which she calls "the essence of life." She ended up in a town called Puebla, the site where scientists believe the corn plant may have first been domesticated between 7,500 and 9,000 years ago.

Today, when Frank collects wild plants in the desert--everything from prickly pear fruits and tumbleweed to Indian tea, cholla cactus, and wild onions--she brings an offering of cornmeal or tobacco to place under the remaining branches, acknowledging the plant's contribution to the well-being of whoever eats it.

"When you harvest something in the wild, you never take all of what exists, so that the plant itself can repropagate," she says. "You always leave some for the animals and for the next generation."

nurturing the body

"The eating habits of the Southwestern tribes follow the seasons closely," say Frank. A straight-from-the-earth diet, one that depends not on contrivances but staples that are available at any particular time of year, is what helps Native Americans maintain their internal equilibrium.

Many of their traditional foods have remarkable nutritional value. For example, tepary beans, mesquite beans and cholla buds--all early fare for the Tohono O'odham--help regulate blood sugar and can bring about a significant decrease in the rate and severity of diabetes. Culinary ash, made from burning woods as varied as juniper and chamisa and used like baking soda in blue-corn recipes, is high in calcium and trace minerals. And just 2 tablespoons of the cholla cactus, whose buds are cooked and eaten as a vegetable by numerous tribes, has as much calcium as a glass of milk.

It was a re-introduction to such examples that brought Whitewater, who spent nine years of his childhood with a Mormon foster family, back into the Native American fold.

"My grandfather used to say, 'You have to keep these ways alive,'" he explains, referring to the traditional ceremonies, the ways of praying and the types of food eaten. "I think I finally understand what he meant by that. When we were young, we wanted he other way--the TV and fast food. But now I say, 'Go ahead, plant the corn. Start these ways all over again, and things will change.'"

blue cornbread

Makes 1 pan of cornbread
or 14 corn sticks.

Blue cornbread can be served
with soups or stews, for
breakfast with fruit sauces and
jellies, or with a meal as you
would any other bread.

1 cup blue cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted
  butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 425[degrees].
Grease one 9-by-13-inch
baking pan, two corn-stick
pans, or an 8-inch cast-iron
skillet.

2. In a large bowl, mix together
the cornmeal, flour, sugar,
baking powder, baking soda
and salt. In a separate bowl,
mix together the eggs and
buttermilk. Gradually stir the
wet ingredients into the dry
ingredients. Mix well. Then
add the melted butter and stir
again. Do not overstir the
mixture.

3. Spoon the batter into the
prepared pan(s) and bake until
firm, 25-30 minutes if using a
baking pan or skillet or 15-20
minutes if using corn-stick
pans. The bread should be
golden brown and spring back
when touched.

PER SERVING (serves 14):
111 calories, 22% fat (2.8 g; 1 g
saturated), 60% carbs (18 g),
12% protein (3 g), 2 g fiber,
202 mg sodium.