Food Anthropology: NW Native American budget meals

October 14, 1:17 PMSeattle Budget Meals ExaminerLori St Kitts

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Food Anthropology: NW Native American budget meals

The First Americans were, by far pros in regard to budget meals making as they were experts at utilizing the surrounding resources and practiced waste-free cooking. Food was considered a gift from the earth, and therefore they shared their meals, especially at ceremonies such as potlatch and wasted nothing. These ideals continue today and can be implemented in our own cooking practices not only to save money, but to also to become cognoscente from where our food originates and of how we use it.

A quick history of NW Native Americans

There are many theories how the First Americans arrived in North America. Regardless of how they arrived, they lived here long before the Europeans set foot. The native people of the Northwest Coast during pre-contact to early contact time spanned fourteen hundred miles from Alaska down to California. Over two-hundred thousand native people, comprised of many groups, inhabited the region until contact with non-Indian newcomers. During this time, 80% of the Native American population of the coast was lost due to illness.

Economic changes among the aboriginal people occurred as a natural result of the shift from subsistence (survival) to trading activities as well as a shift from hunting-gathering to horticulture. The Russians introduced potato farming to the Tlingit that spread to the Coast Salish and Haida. This new adaptation to potato farming and trading allowed these groups to overcome the decline in their standard of living that was caused by the change from their hunter-gathering lifestyle to a reliance on pelt trade.

Northwest Native Americans have seen many changes to their culture and lifestyle. They weathered post-contact events and demands, but through tenacity and loyalty to their culture, have been able to remain an active and important part of the world today.

First Americans that have inhabited what is now Washington State

Foods that have been important to NW Native Americans:

• Berries
• Seaweed
• Meat all smoked or dried:
• mountain goats
• elk
• moose
• bears
• seals
• small mammals
• Halibut
• Salmon, dried for winter use, has been the prized and usually abundant principal food
• Whale
• Eulachon, a smelt abundant in early spring, were caught in large quantities and processed into rich oil used as a sauce at every meal.

Edible nuts found in the Pacific NW:

• Hazelnuts
• Chinquapin
• Acorns
• Walnuts
• Filberts
•  

Native American Recipes - Budget-friendly and oh so tasty:
NativeTech: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes (Northwest page)

Pioneer and Indian Recipes

Additional Information:
Salmon Shape a Way of Life Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
This short exhibit description explains that salmon was and is not merely a food of sustenance for the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, but also their way of life and heritage.

Edible plants of the Pacific NW Glossary (free food is free food!)