Indigenous cuisine of the Americas

The many indigenous tribes and nations of the Americas (see Indigenous cultures of North America, Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica and Indigenous cultures of South America) each had somewhat different foods, and many of their dishes are available today.

In most cases there has been considerable influence in both directions between indigenous cultures and colonial cultures. This article therefore overlaps considerably with articles on the other cuisines of the region.

Understand

The Neolithic revolution — where agriculture began and people who had previously been hunter-gatherers settled near their crops and soon developed irrigation and cities — seems to have occurred independently in at least half a dozen places around the world, including two in the Americas.

One was among the Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica who developed agriculture based on the "three sisters" — corn (maize), beans and squash — starting before 7000 BCE. Later their crops and techniques spread to other indigenous groups across North America. Mesoamerica also made other important contributions to world cuisine, notably chocolate and chili peppers.

The other was among the Incas, with a different mix of crops. Their great contributions to world cuisine were the potato and sweet potato.

Foods

While some native groups have been farming for a thousand years or more, and many others have settled on reservations or in towns in recent centuries, hunting and fishing are still common and much native cooking involves game meats or foods foraged in the wild.

Bison mother and calf

• Buffalo (Bison). Tens of millions of these beasts once roamed the Great Plains and nearby regions, but they were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and today very few remain. There are protected herds in Canadian Wood Buffalo National Park, American Yellowstone National Park and a few other places. You almost certainly will not be allowed to hunt them and are not likely to find meat from wild ones on the market. However, they are also farmed and quite a few restaurants offer bison burgers or other dishes.  
• Venison. Deer are common across much of the Americas and are often hunted by both natives and non-natives; they are also farmed for meat. Similar species, such as elk, moose, caribou and antelope, are also hunted. The hides become buckskin.  

Beware that these animals can be quite dangerous; an elk, moose or buffalo can total a small car by charging it, and in North America more humans are killed by moose than by bears and wolves combined.

• Salmon. These fish are taken on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of both Canada and the US, as well as in several other countries. Only two cultures in human history have developed advanced forms of art before irrigation or cities. They were the Ainu in Japan and the Indians of the Pacific Northwest in Canada and the US; both relied heavily on salmon. Salmon is readily available — fresh, frozen, smoked, or canned — in markets anywhere in North America, and is often offered in restaurants; it is almost always more expensive than most fish.
  Some claim the world's best salmon is found in the Pacific Northwest, smoked using traditional native methods, though like almost any "world's best " claim this is disputed. One good source is Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands.  
• Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus). A fish species related to salmon and trout that needs cold water to live. They are found in parts of Northern Europe, but are most abundant in Northern Canada, especially Nunavut. They are fished commercially, are popular with sport fishermen, and make excellent eating.  
• Country food. This phrase is used mainly by Canada's urban Inuit (Eskimo), referring to foods that are common up north but not found in supermarkets in the south. It is mainly used for hunted sea mammals such as seal, walrus and whale, but can also refer to other game such as caribou, ptarmigan, char or beaver.  

Sports hunters and fishermen also take some of these types of game, and some natives run resorts for them or work as guides.

Other traditional native foods include:

Inuit bannock

• Bannock (fry bread). This is a type of bread found among all tribes from the Inuit of Northern Canada and the Aleut of Alaska down to Central America. It was also common fare for whites in the Old West and during the gold rushes in Alaska and the Klondike. The name "bannock" is borrowed from a Scottish bread, but the resemblance is not close.  
• Wild rice. This grows mainly in lakes and streams of North America and is harvested by Indians in canoes. Because the harvesting is labour-intensive, the product is often quite expensive. The plant is not closely related to domestic rice and the grain is more flavorful.  
• Pemmican. This is a mixture of tallow (rendered fat), dried meat and often dried fruit; the type of meat and fruit vary by season, region and tribe. The variant using venison and blueberries, made by the Algonquin speakers of Ontario and Quebec, is particularly tasty. This is a high-calorie food, good as a trail ration; even some Antarctic expeditions used it.  
• Chocolate. The oldest known use of chocolate was in Ecuador before 3000 BCE. Europeans first encountered it in Mesoamerica in the 1500s CE.  
• Fiddlehead greens. These are the heads of young ferns, boiled or steamed and eaten as a vegetable. They are found mainly in the northeast of North America — Quebec, Atlantic Canada and New England. They were a food among the natives, later adopted by various settler groups.  

Drugs

A number of common drugs originated in the Americas, though their use in indigenous societies was often rather different from how they came to be used elsewhere.

• Tobacco use goes back many thousands of years, and was mainly ceremonial among native groups.
• Coca — taken as tea or by chewing the leaves — is a stimulant used by many Andean tribes, not entirely safe but not remarkably dangerous either, and legal in several countries. Cocaine, the concentrated white powder which can be extracted from coca, is quite dangerous and is illegal in most countries.
• Two psychedelics (effects similar to LSD) have been used in indigenous societies, mainly by shamans and mainly in Mexico and the US Southwest. The peyote cactus (mescaline) has been made illegal in many countries, but US law has an exemption for the Native American Church. The psilocybin mushroom is also illegal in many places, but "shrooms" are available in most North American cities and in parts of Mexico for the tourist trade.

Destinations

Some of these foods are available in restaurants or stores on reserves or in other native communities; see Indigenous cultures of North America, Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica and Indigenous cultures of South America for information on some of the communities. There are also native-run restaurants or stores in various cities.