(Host)
‘Tis the season to give and receive gifts – often of food. It’s a
practice that reminds commentator Ron Krupp of some of the unique food
gifts that came to us from Native Americans – in addition to the
traditional crops of corn, beans and squash that we most often hear
about.
(Krupp) It’s estimated that sixty percent of the foods we
eat originated in the America’s. Our ancient ancestors had an extensive
knowledge of the forest, fields and wetlands. And the plants they grew
have contributed more to the world’s food supply than those of any other
continent. We should be mindful of the gifts these indigenous groups
gave us.
The Abenaki and other tribes of the Northeast foraged
in the forest and fields and grew plants for food, medicinal, and
spiritual purposes. They managed the forests of nut trees by using
controlled burning of the undergrowth and they harvested many kinds of
nuts including chestnuts. One out of four trees in the Appalachian chain
were chestnuts until a pathogenic fungus caused by a blight in early
1900’s. It decimated just about all the trees by 1940. Other foraged
nuts included butternuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, hickory and beechnuts. Nut
meats were nutritious foods, but nuts were also used for sap, oil and
dyes. A variety of Ground nut saved the Pilgrims from starvation.
Jerusalem
Artichokes, a member of the Sunflower family, is native to Vermont. It
has stalks ten feet tall and by the end of the summer produces dainty
sunflowers. But it’s best known for what’s under the ground. The knobby,
tasty tubers are harvested in fall and mashed, baked or fried.
Indigenous
people also harvested blueberries, elderberries, raspberries,
chokeberries, black berries, black cherries, fire snow berries and
grapes for eating during the season and drying for the long winter
months. They harvested many greens – such as purslane, lambsquarters and
pigweed – a type of Amaranth. The leaves were eaten and the seeds
ground up for flour. Amaranth has become one of the most important
cereal grains in the diets of highland peoples in India, China,
Pakistan, Tibet, and Nepal.
In northern Minnesota, many lakes
and ponds have long been associated with particular varieties of wild
rice, where Northern Ojibwa farmers saved the seed for the next year’s
crop. Recently, a group of seed scientists from Minnesota came to
Vermont to select hardy varieties of the wild rice that grows in the
northern wetlands of Lake Champlain.
Favorite edible spring
roots along the Winooski River included wild garlic or what some call
ramps – and cattails. Native Americans harvested a small barley plant
called Little barley for its edible seed. They used bedstraw for
cushions. Black mustard, sassafras and mushrooms were prized for food
and medicine. Tobacco and Sweetgrass were used in religious ceremonies.
And of course the sap from the maple sugar tree was tapped for the
sweetest syrup in the world.