resistant, and shiny.
The general idea of a traditional native salad is to cut down on salt, by emphasizing flavors
from vinegar, honey or maple syrup, herbs, and ground pungent seeds (such as mustard). The
petals of most flowers that will later be edible fruits or berries can be eaten, but not all taste
good. Elder flowers and basswood flowers are especially good.
What I find rather interesting is that there is really no early record of salads in European
cuisine -- although peasants and country people certainly ate various kinds of early wild
plants. The idea of salad seems to have been brought back to France from America in the 18th
century or so. (I'm not sure English ever really have caught on about salads.) Escoffier, in the
famous Guide Culinaire has braised lettuces, pureed, stuffed leaves, creamed, souflèed -- but
not raw! Cucumbers are parboiled, then fussed with in many ways. Cauliflower, one of the
nicest (raw) salad vegetables is cooked. He does talk of cooking new peas quickly (unlike the
English who cook boiled vegetables to death), but any raw vegetable, root or leafy, is carved
up for a granish, or laid around as green frills, considered only for show, not edible.
So, although I've never seen this discussed in European cookbooks or food discussions, I
think the very idea of salads came from Native people. AFter all, what did Europeans do with
the tomato? for 100 years they considered it ornamental but a deadly poison!
Traditionally, the main huge salad eating-feasts were in early spring, when a great many wild
plants -- tough and inedible even if cooked later -- come up as tender new shoots and leaves.
What we now can do, because of refrigeration and shipping, is eat salads all year long -- and
we should! All vegetables lose some of their nutrient value in any kind of cooking. Young
people should be aware that delicious and healthful salads are part of our Native food
traditions, so eat plenty of it.--Frybread--Tasty Symbol of all-Indian unity--Native cookbooks --Nutrition info, cookbooks for kids--Wild rice recipes --Maple sugar/syrup recipes--Corn, hominy, cornmeal -- Beans and Greens--Squash, pumpkin --Deermeat, Meat--Fish, birds --Fruit and Berries--Herbal Teas, Culinary
Herbs--Xocoatl (Chocolate), Aztecs
(and south) YUM!Copyright 1995, Paula GieseNative Foods -- Recipes--Beans
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_beans.html (4 of 5) [5/17/2004 11:52:08 AM]