What was traditional Native American Indian food like? Recipes?

Maize. i.e. Corn

That’s like asking what Asian food is like. The diets and culinary traditions are as varied as the peoples and climates. Not every American Indian group eats maize corn, for instance.

Also, why use the past tense?

Today there are over 500 federally recognized tribes, many more that are unrecognized by the government. Pre-colonization, when Indigenous diets weren’t oppressed, there were more tribes than that. Each tribe had their own diet based on where they lived (coast ate fish, plains ate buffalo) and how they lived (for example if they traveled with the seasons or stayed put).

Tribal people had fire so food could be cooked. They also had systems for drying foods into jerky and dried fruit and pastes. Some tribes also had advanced agriculture systems.

So really tribal people ate from the earth but this could mean any number of things. Some tribes were hunters and gatherers, some were agriculturists, some were other “labels”. And don’t forget the power of trade as well.

Post colonization tribal people were forced out of their homelands and so did not have access to traditional foods. Then where they were re-homed they weren’t even allowed access to the land around them anyhow. So they lived on government commodities that were grossly sub-par. Flour was most often infested with grubs for example. This is where the “traditional” Native food of ‘frybread’ came into play. It was one food that could be created with government commodities and few ingredients. It is similar to an ‘elephant ear’.

@RedPowerLady Ironically, the grubs were probably more nutritious than the flour

@incendiary_dan good point and well said because after the introduction of commodity foods rates of diabetes in Native populations skyrocketed and are still horribly insane

@RedPowerLady And to make matters worse, now some jerks try to tell people their traditional diets are bad for them, despite the fact that nobody got diabetes eating bison meat or seal fat. What a load.

@incendiary_dan In fact they have done research studies for Natives with type 2 diabetes and had them switch back to completely traditional diets. They found that some people were able to rid themselves of the diabetes altogether and everyone had positive results (i.e. more manageable illness). These results were heightened when the diet was tribe specific vs. in-general traditional. So hooey balooey to those jerks ;).

[mod says] Let’s stick to answering the actual question, folks. Remember, this is the General Section. Thanks!

Succotash is from the Narragansett people.

Here are some Native American Recipes. The few that I looked at are mouth-watering.

And if you ever find yourself in Washington, DC, please go to the Mitsitam Cafe in the National Museum of the Native American museum in the Smithsonian. Oh my…it was one of the best dining experiences ever.