THE COOKBOOK TEST #0012: IROQUOIS FOODS AND FOOD PREPARATION

INSTALLMENT #0012 (PAID) / THE SMELL OF BURNING CORN / FOOD AS LIFE AS RELIGION / MASHED POTATOES WITH NUT GRAVY / BOILED CORN BREAD

Dear Subscribers,

Today’s book is a bit of an odd duck in terms of this project. It’s 107 years old (originally; my actual copy is a facsimile edition that’s only 50 years old.) I purchased it at a rare cookbook shop in Maine called Rabelais. And it’s not really a cookbook, inasmuch as the recipes aren’t particularly meant to be replicated - it’s more of a collection of ingredients, methods, and native linguistics. Nevertheless, I’ve attempted to make edible food using its instructions, with mixed results.

IROQUOIS FOODS AND FOOD PREPARATION ranges further than its title might suggest. It includes related tribes stretching west from New York out to the Great Lakes, and describes facets as varied as husking bees, tableware, rain ceremonies, the rites of the False Face Society, and the relationship between people and the gods. 

It’s also a product of a different time. In the opening chapter, the book describes the native peoples’ relationship by corn, quantifying their fields and reliance on the crop by telling stories of colonists destroying that food source:

So important, in fact, were Iroquois agricultural activities that, at a later date, when it was desired to punish them effectively, this was done by annihilating their granaries and cornfields.

Among the more important expeditions of this kind was that of [Jacques-René de Brisay de] Denonville, who, in 1687, destroyed an immense amount of corn, including the standing crops of four villages, a work of destruction that is said to have taken seven days to accomplish. In 1696 [Louis de Buade de] Frontenac, who invaded Onondaga country, spent three days destroying growing corn, which extended from a league and a half to two leagues from the fort.

And so on and so forth; the book lists another couple expeditions (including one where “the quantity of corn destroyed was said to have amounted to 160,000 bushels”) before segueing immediately into an account of European crops introduced to native peoples by missionaries. 

Spending time with this book is uncomfortable: it’s a story of a people attacked and decimated by European settlers, told by European settlers, at a time when native peoples were still actively being suppressed, imprisoned, starved, kidnapped into residential schools.

But it’s also time well spent - Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation is a fascinating collection of foods, recipes, traditions, and peoples who are poorly remembered by mainstream Americans today, and its stories resonate particularly well during the season of Thanksgiving, a holiday that was pitched to America at large as a celebration of peaceful relations between European settlers and native peoples in order to paper over the extermination by European settlers of native peoples. In short: A real marketing triumph in a country that was practically built upon them!

at your service,

James

IROQUOIS FOODS AND FOOD PREPARATION
BY F.W. WAUGH
Canada Department of Mines / 235 pages  / 1916 

One of the most compelling aspects of Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation has little to do with food, per se. The book constantly documents the way that Iroquois people banded together to get things done: everything from corn husking “bees” (like a quilting bee in spirit) to medicine societies (exclusively male membership, save for a female leader), to collective prayer ceremonies for rain or the health of the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) that represent the backbone of much Native American agriculture.

Individuals shrink before the importance of society as a whole, and even chiefs and society leaders are valuable for how they serve the people as a group, rather than their own deeds or legends. The main vessel for cooking is a cauldron or other massive pot, and food is prepared for a village at a time, rather than a family or individual. The food of this book is, on whole and in every imaginable way, the polar opposite of a Hot Pocket.

The book connects to a recent interest of mine, that of native culinary innovation in the Upper Midwest. Chefs including Sean Sherman (the Sioux Chef, Owamni) and Bryce Stevenson (Miijim - see my interview here) are rewriting the story of American Indian cuisine by digging into the history of the continent’s pre-colonial pantry while envisioning a fine dining-informed future. To its credit, Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation does a lot to illustrate the point that there was a rich, complex, and thriving food culture here in North America before the English, French, Spanish and others arrived on the continent’s shores.