Cowboys & Indians / September 2010 / Thriving with Three Sisters

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Thriving with Three Sisters

Discover a Native cuisine with the power to save a people and transform a nation. Long before cowboys roamed the Western frontier, American Indians lived off the land, hunting, gathering, and cultivating indigenous plants and animals. The varied dishes they created were complex, refined, and nourishing enough to sustain whole tribes, as well as the early Anglo settlers who were unaccustomed to their foreign environs and relied on the agricultural outreach and trade from their new neighbors. Eventually these foods, altered by the influences of English, Spanish, French, and other immigrants, would become the backbone of today’s Western cuisine. And now, thanks to rising interest in sustainable agriculture and traditional diets, regional Native American cookery is enjoying a well-deserved renaissance.

In the Southwest, where red rock mesas and low-lying deserts meet rugged mountains, the Native American diet historically relied on three primary foods: corn, beans, and squash. These sacred foods, which can be found throughout the Americas, thrive even under the harshest conditions. Traditionally planted together in one mound, these gifts from the Great Spirit became known as the “three sisters.”

“They’re called the three sisters because they support and help each other, and because they grow harmoniously together,” says Lois Ellen Frank, a New Mexico-based chef, photographer, anthropologist, and author of Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations (Ten Speed Press, 2002). “Each one makes the other stronger.” The tall cornstalk in the center acts as a pole for the tender climbing bean vines that surround it, while the large, broad squash leaves carpet the earth, forming shade to prevent weeds and keep the soil moist. But perhaps even more surprising than the plants’ symbiotic architecture is the way they environmentally sustain each other.

“Corn draws nitrogen from the soil,” says Frank, “and beans put it back in. They’re perfectly balanced.” Nutritionally they are also interconnected, as beans are rich in protein and two essential nutrients that corn lacks. Corn, the chief source of carbohydrates, provides energy, while squash is high in vitamin A and is a valuable source of oil through its seeds.

Of the three, corn was by far the most important culinary staple, representing the essence of life. Consequently, it became the object of numerous dances, songs, religious ceremonies, works of art, and cultural traditions. The five kinds—dent, flint, flour, sweet, and pop—come in an array of beautiful colors, from the familiar yellow and white to red, speckled, and a range of blues.

Even with its emphasis on corn, Native American cuisine is amazingly diverse, as this vegetable can be prepared in a myriad of ways. While sweet corn is often steamed, roasted, or grilled whole, dried maize can be boiled for hominy stew, coarsely ground for grits, or finely mashed into masa for tamales. Flour corn is generally dried, ground, and used in baked goods from tortillas to corn bread. Blue corn, a kind of flour corn that yields a slightly coarser meal than yellow or white corn, has a sweeter, nuttier flavor that is prized by the Hopi Indians.

Piki bread, a crispy paper-thin corn bread made from blue corn, is a quintessential Hopi dish traditionally made on a large, flat stone heated over a burning fire. Hopi women dip one hand in a thin, blue cornmeal batter, then quickly swish their hand across the hot stone, leaving a thin layer of batter. Once cooked, the parchment-like sheet is peeled off, then folded and rolled into a tube about the size of an ear of corn. In addition to breads and dumplings, you can also find blue cornmeal in stews, stuffings, baked goods, the now-ubiquitous blue corn tortilla chips, and even beverages.

Native peoples traditionally dry their corn so it lasts through the winter, then grind it for flour or soak it in water and ash from burned juniper, suwvi, or chamisa plants. The ash acts like lime, breaking down the corn and allowing the hull to be easily removed. Known as hominy in the Southeast and posole in parts of the Southwest, these hulled corn kernels are then boiled for several hours and used in a variety of dishes.

“Posole is also the name of a traditional Native American stew made from dried hominy and pork or ham,” says Richard Hetzler, executive chef at the Mitsitam Cafe in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. “We typically do a green chile posole for our Mesoamerica menu.” Mitsitam means “Let’s eat!” in the Native language of the Delaware and Piscataway peoples, and the museum-based restaurant invites visitors to try traditional and seasonal Native American cuisine from five main regions: the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, the Great Plains, and Mesoamerica.

Certain dishes, like Hetzler’s Three Sister Soup with Sunflower Foam and Three Sister Salad featuring beans, squash, and corn in a light vinaigrette, regularly rotate on the menu depending on the season. “I try to use as many authentic ingredients and flavors as I can, like mesquite flour, nopales [cactus pads], and pinyon nuts.”

Ground from bean pods that grow on the shrub-like mesquite plant native to the desert regions of the Southwest and Mexico, mesquite flour has a nutty flavor with deep caramel undertones. At Mitsitam it appears in the form of a dark brown, chewy, and slightly sweet cookie.

Nopales and pinyon nuts are often found in salads, soups, and sauces on Hetzler’s menu, and you’ll even find some pinyon nuts sprinkled on a lemon-rosemary tart. “Although Native Americans didn’t eat a lot of sweets, the sweet dishes they did make were often infused with savory spices like rosemary and sage,” he points out.

Game, another Native American staple, usually supplemented soups, stews, and bean dishes. Indians hunted deer, antelope, elk, and bison, as well as small game like quail and rabbit. Today, these proteins have morphed into sheep, beef, and pork in daily diets, but contemporary Native American chefs are finding ways to reintroduce traditional meats in inventive ways while continuing to use chilis, tomatoes, and a variety of seeds and nuts in their dishes, especially the pinyon nut, or pine nut, and acorn. Yucca, hibiscus, and squash blossoms, other desert specialties, appear on menus in salads or on their own, stuffed and fried. But, even with the introduction of modern ingredients and techniques, all American Indian cuisine shares the same intertwined roots.

“Native American foods can be broken down into three distinct categories,” says Frank. “First are ‘precontact’ foods, which are the foods that existed and grew here naturally, like the cultivars of corn, beans, squash, chilis, and tomatoes, and all the wild foods like cacti, wild greens, berries, fruits, and wild game. It was an extremely diverse cuisine.

“The second big influence on the cuisine was what I call ‘first contact’ foods, which were the foods the Spanish brought to the Southwest that evolved into Native American cuisine. These foods were introduced to the Native Americans about 500 years ago and include pork, beef, sheep, and stone fruits.

“Finally, there are ‘government-issued’ foods, which are the foods issued to Native Americans by the U.S. government, things like white flour, sugar, powdered milk, and lard.” Even these government foods, however, have been creatively incorporated into Native American cuisine with lasting results.

Take, for example, what has perhaps become the most iconic Native food of all—Indian fry bread. Served at roadside stands, powwows, and state fairs throughout the West, drizzled with local honey or served taco-style topped with a meat-and-bean chili, lettuce, tomato, and plenty of shredded cheese, fry bread tells the story of both culinary tragedy and triumph.

Navajo fry bread originated in the 1860s, after the United States government forced more than 8,000 Navajos to make the 300-mile journey known as the “Long Walk” from their home in Arizona to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. Far from home and planted fields, they were given little more than white flour and lard to eat. The Navajo women created fry bread as a means to survive on their poor-quality rations.

Now blamed for rampant obesity and diabetes in Native populations, fry bread has been accused of killing more people than the U.S. government. But love it or hate it, fry bread is at its core about making something out of nothing. And now, going back to their roots, Native chefs are able, once again, to make something out of something—the sacred ingredients that existed long before us all. The result? Absolutely delicious.

Issue: September 2010

Filed under: Food-Wine, Food