In the Beginning...

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The Iroquois learned to make maple syrup from the maple tree. Early French visitors to Indian villages were served popcorn mixed with maple syrup. The French called it "snow food". Today, we call it crackerjacks.

Old Indian salad favorites were tender leaves and buds of the milkweed or the opening fronds of ferns. The roots and seeds of the yellow pod lily are a special delicacy.

A popular Iroquois dish was boiled corn bread. The corn was hulled, washed, and then pounded into flour which was mixed with boiling water until it formed a stiff paste. Cooked beans, walnuts, butternuts, or seasonal berries were added for flavor. When the mixing was done and the paste kneaded until just the right consistency, it was formed into loaves and placed in boiling water for about an hour. When the bread floated to the top of the water, the loaves were ready to eat.

Corn was perhaps the greatest gift that the Indian bestowed upon the white settlers. The early Pilgrims of Plymouth and the colonists at Jamestown settlements were saved from starvation by harvests of corn. Corn was very important and it is believed that the settlement of America by white colonists would have been delayed 100 years if it hadn't been for the availability of corn for food.

Indians had 50 different recipes for serving corn which included corn on the cob, roasted ears, hominy, mush, popcorn, corn bread, johnnycake, puddings, succotash, and varieties of corn soup.

Parched or dried corn was stored in bark barrels or hung up in bunches in the longhouse.

One Indian method of preparing corn was to roast it. A pit, four feet wide and three feet deep, was dug into the ground. The hole was lined with large stones. A fire was kindled and kept burning until the stones were very hot. The resulting smoking ashes were removed and the hole was lined with corn stalks and husks stripped from the ears. Bare ears of corn were laid on this bed of green and covered over with more stalks and husks. Cold water was poured into the pit.

The resulting steam was kept inside the pit as the hole was tightly packed with fresh earth.

The next day the hole was uncovered and the baked corn was removed and left to dry in the sun. During the long hours of cooking slowly in its own flavorful juices, the ears had become brown and tender with a delicious sweet flavor. 

The corn was then shelled to be put away for winter use.

Social life of the Iroquois and Eries was celebrated by a series of eight main festivals. The first was the New Year celebration which took place during the full moon of the month of the New Year. Two maple festivals were held, one at the beginning and one at the end of the maple sap run. In the spring was the Strawberry Festival followed in season by a bean and three corn feasts.

Indians made beverages from different plants. One was a type of coffee made from roasted corn. Another brew was made from sunflower seeds. Tea was made from most berries. A popular summer beverage much like lemonade was concocted by using the berries from the stag horn sumac.

Woodland Indians enjoyed the roots of the yellow lotus which were eaten much like potatoes.

Indian children liked the maple syrup season. The syrup was tested for its readiness by pouring samples into the snow to harden. The children would gather to check the proper condition of the solidified syrup and eat it as candy much as modern children like to do when sampling the scrapings of the frosting bowls.

Early settlers along the Atlantic Coast learned from the Indians how to prepare clambakes and dishes of baked beans.

Algonkian Tribes taught the first colonists how to bake clams, plant corn, bury a pot of beans in a fire overnight, bake corn cake, or "pone", eat pumpkins and squash. Seaweed was used as fertilizer.

Great Lakes Indians ate wild rice with venison and duck or made a pudding from it. Persimmon bread was also a favorite.

Chippewas had a favorite food of a fish and vegetable stew containing wild rice, wild onions, dried corn and fish. Another soup was made with wild rice and blueberries. They also made a soup from cattail roots which was a plant that could be eaten raw, boiled or pounded into a flour for bread. Puddings were made from pumpkins and squashes or from popped corn and chestnuts. Maple syrup was added to most of these dishes as flavoring.

Indians had simple methods of preserving food. Squash and pumpkin were cut into strips and dried. These were then stored in underground pits lined with skins or bark.

Pemmican was an Indian food made of dried and pulverized meat mixed with melted fat and dried berries.

Indian legend states that corn, bean and squash plants were three loving sisters that must always be planted together.

For seasonings Indians used sassafras, wintergreen, hemlock tips, pepper root and ginger.

Our Thanksgiving Day is known to be of Indian Origin. We borrowed from the Indians the custom of serving turkey, cranberries and Indian puddings along with other of their favorite foods, including squash, which were served on this occasion.

Thanksgiving Indian style was celebrated for two weeks.