Something that bugged me.

My cousin posted an article a few days ago about a Lakota chef putting out his own cookbook of only native ingredients. No dairy, no wheat, no beef or chicken or pork.

That really is great and I encourage it. But one thing that got me all kinds of ranty was the tag line “You can have your turkey dinner but no creamy mashed potatoes.”

Um… excuse me? Besides the fact that potatoes are a new world food, I’ll give you that they didn’t reach the Lakota until the Irish brought them back. BUT. I can think of four potato-like starchy root vegetables that do grow here that we DID eat. Sunchokes, Winecups, Bull Nettles, and Wapato or Duck Potato without even trying. We don’t do creamy, but what about the nut butters we did do? Hickory nuts, pecans, even down to sunflower seeds. It’s just foolish and discounting an entire swath of foods we have a long history with.

I have to turn around and wonder if anybody has tried to re-cultivate the giant ragweed that we believe was cultivated here 600(ish) years ago. If you’re wondering where that statement comes from, there is evidence that humans cultivated ragweed as food.

As a complete aside, I do find it amusing that ragweed is filed in my brain under “vegetable based oils and butters”.

What irritated me the most about it wasn’t the book itself, but the assumption that our native foods were lacking in some way. That we can’t make good food. I can walk out there right now and with a little planning and forethought, harvest some kind of critter for meat, this is the time that roots are ready to be harvested, so there’s no lack in starchy sides… anything from nutsedge to the winecups in the yard to the sunchokes on the side of the highway or the wapato growing in the wetter areas. There’s fresh greens just ready for picking… some do need cooking, but many right now don’t… and won’t until it starts getting warm again in the later spring. We may not have many maples down here, but we have sweetgum and cottonwood and others for syrup.

Texas has more food than you could imagine. And especially during the “dead of winter” when the northern states are locked in snow and ice. We have more forgotten food at our fingertips and under our feet and more variety than any modern grocery store. Saying we “can’t” do something or that we are lacking or insufficient is a disservice to our ancestors and the land itself.