Traditional Foods

"Traditional" in the context of these projects means pre-contact foods. No beef, mutton, goat, chicken, pork, milk, butter, cream, wheat flour (no fry bread), rye, barley, okra, black-eyed peas, or any other "Old World" food that many of us have lovingly incorporated into our diets and tribal cultures. No processed foods (Doritoes, Lays Chips, etc), even if the base is corn or potatoes. No chocolate unless it is unsweetened cacao or sweetened with honey from the Melipona bee, fruit, stevia, camas or agave. Be adventurous and try unfamiliar foods! There are many foods to choose from. My American Indian Health and Diet Project site lists and defines many of them.



Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Cherimoya, Corn, Masa


I bought a cherimoya, a fruit native to the Andes, at a local market. It is sometimes referred to as a "custard apple" but it's not related. Just eat the insides (not the seeds) with a spoon.

This looks like goolash, but is a combination of cooked corn meal, ground turkey, zucchini and yellow peppers. I added salt, pepper and onion powder. The longer it cooks in the crock pot, the more the flavors mingle the more desirable the texture.
I made a plate of sauteed yellow squash, zucchini and sweet red peppers, then added some of the last peppers from my garden as a bit of crunch. That long green one is HOT. Underneath is a corn tortilla I made with Maseca corn masa. I don't like white flour tortillas, but love corn ones. My favorite part of a tamale is the corn. Anyway, Maseca flour is sold in most stores and is a mix of pure corn flour and lime. Mix it with water as per instructions. I don't have a tortilla press, so I flattened the flour balls between wax paper by pressing down with a medium sized pan. I cooked them on a pancake griddle for about a minute on each side.

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