The Art of American Indian Cooking

We Indigenous of this Turtle Island GAVE potatoes, tomatoes, & similar to the world, so where those who reviewed this book got the wild idea that we didn't have those things is beyond me. Maybe they'er wannabe Caucasians with the standard paternalistic view of us 'poor ignerent savajs'. As for honey - we had that, too, as did most of the rest of the world. We gave over 200 different foods alone to the rest of the world. It's high time someone took note of that from outside the Indn world, & got the rest of the sophomores off their high horses. We didn't have noodles - those came from China. We made dumplings. We didn't eat our food raw - we cooked it. We did have spices, but not the same ones that lost Italian creep was looking for. Duwahleh! These people who say such things as were said about us Indns should subscribe to the ancient teaching (from everyone's culture) that "if you keep your mouth shut, folks might think you're a fool, but if you open it & pour out inaccurate paternalistic garbage, you will remove any doubt".

The recipes are quite good. I would like to weigh in, however, on the issue of the 'traditionality' of the various dishes included here. An earlier reviewer mentioned that the recipes 'are only traditional in a pan-American sense', but I would differ with that characterization. First, a good number of the recipes call for nothing more than what would have been available to the particular tribes in question in pre-Columbian times. Only some of the recipes include ingredients originally from Central & South America & elsewhere. But further, I wonder whether it is in fact wrong to call the dishes that *do* include ingredients from afar traditional. Using this criterion one would have to count out tomato-based sauces as part of Italian culinary tradition, for instance, or for that matter Italian noodles, the making of which was learned from China. Most if not all of the dishes probably represent traditional Indian cookery in one form or another, whether traditions pre-existing the arrival of Europeans or arising afterwards. But it is worthwhile noting that some of these dishes likely came into being later than others, as the earlier reviewer took pains to do.

This cookbook is a wonderful source of knowledge in addition to recipes. The recipes are easy to follow and many are delicious. Even my children who are at times picky eaters enjoyed tasting and helping prepare the recipes. We used the book as a resource while doing a research paper on Iroquios food. We learned alot from reading the information and found it to be written very well.