A Week of Eating Indigenous Foods: With Many Postscripts!: Cooking Wild Turkey

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.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Cooking Wild Turkey

I cooked a wild turkey Josh got a few weeks ago. Since these birds tend to be dry, I soaked it first a large water container (left, with Hank) in a solution of water, orange juice, salt water, brown sugar, black pepper, and vegetable stock.

A good recipe to follow is Alton Brown's (the guy on Iron Chef and host of Good Eats):
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe/index.html

The turkey was much juicier than other birds I have cooked without brining. After we ate the meat, I made what a friend calls "carcass soup," which is actually turkey stock. You can easily make stock and then use it when you need broth for beans, soup, etc. Here are directions on my site:

http://www.aihd.ku.edu/recipes/vegetable_turkey_game_stock.html

3 comments:

AnonymousDecember 20, 2011 at 8:02 PM
This site is wonderful. Will come out with an Indigenous Cookbook? I'd buy it!
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Devon MihesuahDecember 21, 2011 at 4:51 AM
I did--sort of. I wrote Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness (University of Nebraska Press) in 2005. It won the Special Award of the Jury of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards (and tied with Martha Stewart and Maya Angelou). It also was Finalist for Best in the World Cookbook. The recipes in that book have been added to the American Indian Health and Diet Project site, but they are more detailed and, there are many more recipes listed. I recommend the site instead of the book.
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2012 Challenge

Get Ready for the Second Annual Week of Indigenous Eating Challenge! November 2-9, 2012

Join the groups that have already voiced their support for the 2012 Challenge:

California Music and Culture Center, California Cultural Sovereignty Center, Native American Studies at Northern
Michigan University, Native Studies at California State University at San Marcos, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin Tsyunhehkw^, KU Tribal Law and Government Center, KU Native Faculty and Staff Council, Cherokee Arts & Humanities Council,the Cherokee National Theater Company, the KU Native Medicinal Research Program. Ku Environs and KU Farm Hands.

If your group is interested in offering moral support for this 2012 Challenge (you do not have to participate, just like the idea), let me know and I will add your name to the list.

November is Native American Heritage Month. During the first week, participants in this challenge will eat foods indigenous to this hemisphere. Eaters can focus on one tribe; or, because foods may be expensive, out of season, contaminated or not available, participants can choose to eat only one or two indigenous meals per day or, widen the meal possibilities by choosing any foods indigenous to the western hemisphere.

This site is maintained by Devon Mihesuah, the Cora Lee Beers Price Professor and Director of the American Indian Health and Diet Project (AIHD) at the University of Kansas. You will find many links here that connect to the AIHD site for recipes, lists of indigenous foods, resources for food research and gardening tips. Recipes are welcome. Send recipes and diet outlines to my e-mail: mihesuah@ku.edu

A Week of Eating Indigenous Foods: With Many Postscripts!

Traditional Foods

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Cooking Wild Turkey

3 comments:

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