Native American Herbal, Plant Knowledge

reduce to very slow simmer. Simmer tightly until done with rice popping out of balls like porky quills --

about 40-45 minutes. -- Olga Masica, Minneapolis

Not exactly a recipe -- a pie for leftover meat or cooked veggies: About 2 cups of cooked rice. Pat a rice

shell into a pie pan -- you can add nuts, sunflower seeds (chopped), and even an egg to hold it together

better, if you have eggs. Toast lightly for 10 minutes in preheated 350-degree oven. Fill this pie shell

with leftover chopped meat (just about any kind) in a sauce or gravy, or cooked vegetables in a light

white sauce. (Broccoli in cheese sauce, very light on the cheese, cauliflower, lima beans, corn). Heat in

oven until sauce is bubbling and meat or veggies are heated through. One "pie" serves 4

not-too-hungry people; if they're hungry better make 2 or have a lot of other food such as soup, salad,

big dessert, depending on what you have. For a fancy dinner, especially one where you are basically

serving disguised leftovers because you are broke, put cut-out vegetable shapes brushed with melted

butter on top of the sauce; tell non-Indian guests (especially French) it's an authentic traditional Native

American Indian quiche. Make up some name for it with a lot of vowels.

In soups and stews: usually better to cook iwild rice separately first, not completely done, then stir it in

for the last 15 minutes of cooking

Habitant pea soup with wild rice -- Naboob: Make this the usual way (3 quarts of water to one lb dried

peas soaked overnight if whole, 1/2 lb salt pork, chopped carrots, onions, turnips, rutabagas). Add

vegetables after bringing peas and pork to a boil and skimming. Simmer covered 4 hours, stir in

cooked wild rice the last 15 minutes. The combo of peas and rice actually contains more

biologically-usable protein than either the same amount of peas plus the same amount of rice, eaten

separately, because of amino acid (components of protein) complementarities.

Popped wild rice: I've only been able to make this work with reasonably fresh real Indian rice. I don't

think you can pop commercial black rice. If it's too dried out (from being broken, then heated) it can't

pop. Test your rice before doing a lot. Put some fat in a frying pan, sprinkle in a little rice and stir it

carefully so it doesn't burn. Maybe it will pop. (It won't fly around like popcorn, it slowly puffs itself into

a long fat pillow.) If it doesn't (and you didn't burn it) throw it in with the other rice and boil it. If it does,

you can eat it like popcorn for more healthful snacks, and for breakfast cereal.

Pop-rice (in deer tallow or bear fat) was traditional. They usually make it at First Rice feasts at ricing

camp if anyone is there who knows how. Somebody told me the name for it, but I forgot. They poured

maple syrup over pop-rice (from the tied sheaves) at sugar camp. Also in winter they melted hardened

sap-candy over it and made it into balls. For winter travel, pop-rice was crushed and shaped into cakes

with some deer fat and quite a lot of melted sugar and dried berries. It was lightweight, filling,

nutritious, and could be eaten without a fire if enemies were around. It didn't have to be packed into

pieces of clean gut, like pemmican.

If preparing wild rice soups or casseroles to sell at powwows, do not skimp on the rice and serve

some kind of tasteless, watery mush. Put some onions and meat into it, too! Cook the rice in meat

broth. Put onions in it, wild onions was traditional, but onions are usually left out for cheap, selling it at

powwow booths. I've had some really awful wild rice glop from vendor booths at powwows. They start

running out, they just put more water in the pot. Indian tacos is just hamburger in sauce on fry bread,

it's OK to pad or stretch that out, but wild rice is a sacred gift. Do it right or don't do it. When you run

low, serve the last of it and close up, don't put a lot of water in to stretch it so you can sell more.

If you are a city person, you can buy "tame" rice farmed in paddies. Chances are this will look very

dark, which most likely means the rice laid around quite a while, drying, before it was parched (in a

commercial oven) and husked (by a machine). It will always be completely broken up. Such rice may

take a long time to cook. If you belong to an alternative foods co-op, you may be able to get them to

Native Foods -- Recipes--Wild Rice

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