Snacking State-by-State: North Dakota I - It's A Sioux Stew Revue

Prior to this post, my only exposure to North Dakota was Fargo (which, I might add, mostly takes place in Minnesota).  Watching Fargo give me no insight into the foods of the Roughrider State, and well it shouldn't.  Otherwise, I'd just be exploring Arby's and "Pancakes House".

Official Name: State of North Dakota
State Nicknames: The Roughrider State, The Peace Garden State, the Flickertail State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#39)
Capital: Bismarck (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Fargo (largest), Grand Forks (3rd largest), Minot (4th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Wild Rice
Bordered by: Manitoba, Saskatchewan (Canada) (north); Montana (west); South Dakota (south); Minnesota (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (beverage), northern pike (fish), chokecherry (fruit), Western wheatgrass (grass)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: wheat & milk (a leading producer of each), Native American (such as Lakota Sioux) foods (including fry bread, pemmican, foods using buffalo, etc.); buffalo, wild rice, chokecherries and other native foods; German,  Scandinavian and Russo-German foods (including borscht and knoepfla soup, etc)


North Dakota's cuisine features a few strong culinary traditions: northern Great Plains (such as Lakota Sioux), Northern European (such as German & Scandinavian) and Eastern European (such as Russian and Russo-German).  While there are surely other traditions, these are the big ones.  A very complete list of what to find food-wise in North Dakota comes from Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador blog author Sandy McMerty, the North Dakota Commerce Dept's Ambassador Program Director and self-proclaimed "chief cheerleader for the state of North Dakota".  She (with intern Stacey Loula) provides an extensive list of food festivals, finds and recipes from all over the state [McMurty 2011]

Of these, the foods of North Dakota's native peoples are certainly the oldest: Ojibwe/Chippewa, Assiniboine, the Affiliated Tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara), and specifically the Sioux: Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. Many of the foods that the Sioux and other Great Plains peoples have eaten and still eat today (and will continue to eat in the future) have already been featured in this series: specifically wojapi and more than a few types of fry bread (the versatile staple of modern Native American cuisine), while others such as wahuwapa wasna (corn balls) will likely pop up at some point in the future .  One search for modern Sioux recipes also turns up a lot of recipes with buffalo, a very important animal in the Great Plains.  It was hunted and eaten there for generations, and of course is now raised as livestock.  So once again it's easy to find.

One search of the internet turned up many Lakota recipes that use buffalo.  Wendell and Nancy Deer With Horns offer a traditional Lakota stew that consists of just chunks of buffalo, wild onions and turnips - simple and delicious.  I went with a more modernized stew from NativeTech.org contributor "HLakota51", Hunkpapa Lakota (Standing Rock Sioux), who gives a filling "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast" using ground buffalo, corn, tomato and brown rice.  I thought of using wild rice, but sometimes my innovations don't work out too well, so no substitutions this time.

The Recipe: Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast

For this buffalo feast you will need the following:

* ground buffalo (quite the feast indeed.  I picked up a pound of ground buffalo at the Waverly Farmer's Market - Gunpowder Bison had plenty of buffalo.  I picked up a pound of it for - gack- $9)
* corn (one can, about 80¢ at Harris Teeter)
* tomatoes (again, about the same at Harris Teeter)
* onions (had a few in the kitchen)
* brown rice (a few cups of it.  I bought it in bulk at Whole Foods for surprisingly little, only about $1.50)
* water (you will need this for the rice.  I had to add a little more than the recipe called for)
* all-purpose seasoning (I didn't have any of this around, so I threw a few spices together: rosemary, cayenne, oregano, thyme and sage.  In the end, I also added a few fancier, feastier things to the finished product: alder-smoked sea salt and Trader Joe's Flower Pepper, a combination of peppercorns and dried edible flowers, all ground together)

First, chop the onions.

I started to sauté the onion with some butter (not listed in the recipe)...

...and then added the buffalo.  Cook until brown.

Add everything else and simmer for half an hour.  I found the rice to still be hard after twenty minutes, so I covered it for the last ten.  The rice was still hard, so I added more water and cooked, covered, for fifteen more minutes.  Tender this time!

Once done, add the spices and stir.

One thing I can say about this buffalo feast: it is quite hearty.  With the selection of seasonings I used it turned out somewhat bland.  Had I used different seasonings that probably would have made a difference.  Again, adding the Flower Pepper and the sea salt made for a fascinating flavor.  It could go well with a little fry bread, or in my case some leftover naan.


Sources:

Deer With Horns, Wendell and Nancy. "Buffalo Recipes".  Deer With Horns Web Site, date unknown.  Copyright 1998-2012 Deer With Horns Web Site.

Diary of a Recipe Addict (Megan, blogger).  "Knoephla Soup".  Posted March 10, 2011.  Copyright 2011-2012 Diary of a Recipe Addict.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.  "History and Culture".  Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, 2011.  Copyright 2012 North Dakota State University Libraries.

"HLakota51" (username). "Grandma Connie's Buffalo Feast". NativeTech.org: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes. Date posted unknown. Copyright 2012 NativeTech.

McMurty, Sandy.  "Foods of North Dakota".  Thoughts from a North Dakota Ambassador.  Posted March 3, 2011.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "North Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "North Dakota".

Snacking State-by-State: Nebraska II - Wojapi makes me happi

Like the pemmican I made a while back, wojapi is a classic Great Plains dish.  Dale Carson, author of New Native American Cooking, makes hers from blackberries, but any berries (or even peaches if you've got 'em) will work with this dish.

Official Name: State of Nebraska

State Nicknames: The Cornhusker State
Admission to the US:  March 1, 1867 (#37)
Capital: Lincoln (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Omaha (largest), Bellevue (3rd largest), Grand Island (4th largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: South Dakota (north), Iowa, Missouri (east), the Missouri River (northeast and east), Oklahoma (south), Colorado (southwest), Wyoming (northwest)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: channel catfish (fish), honeybee (insect - of course, the honey is what people eat, not the bee), white-tailed deer (mammal)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: corn, wheat and honey; foods of the Great Plains, including Native American foods (pemmican, wojapi, etc); foods from German, Czech and Russian immigrants, and foods from Midwestern and Southern settlers; the Reuben and runza sandwiches; beef (Omaha steaks)


Wojapi is the Lakota Sioux (and most widely used) name for the fruit pudding found throughout the Great Plains.  An article from the Lincoln Journal Star earlier this year noted that the Ponca Tribe threw a party for the town of Milford, Nebraska, to thank the community that buried a member that died over a century ago on the forced Ponca Trail of Tears march from Nebraska to Oklahoma in the 1870's, to thank the community for "taking care of our ancestor for 134 years" noted Ponca Museum cultural director Gary Robinette [Abourezk 2011].  The feast, the article notes, included "a traditional meal of buffalo corn soup, frybread and wojapi (a kind of fruit pudding)" [Abourezk 2011].

There are various recipes out there for wojapi, but they are more or less the same: berries, water, cornstarch or flour, and sugar or honey.  Dale Carson's Lakota-style wojapi [1996: 157] has an almost 2 to 1 ratio of berries to sugar.  Hers also calls for minimal water, while a recipe on the NativeTech website for "blueberry wojapi" calls for twice as much water as sugar.  The same holds for a wojapi recipe posted on this multiethnic Nebraska for Life handout of recipes for many ethnic groups in Nebraska (indigenous and immigrant).

You don't necessarily have to add pure white sugar either.  A recipe on the Traditional Indigenous Recipes page of the American Indian Health and Diet Project aims to tackle the double tasks of fighting obesity and diabetes among Native Americans today, and making a more traditional version of the classic Great Plains fruit pudding.  This version, as the site notes,

...was not [traditionally] made with flour or sugar, but today it often is, rendering it only a marginally nutritious dish (even less so if the berries used are frozen “with sugar added”). If the berries you find are ripe and tasty, there is no need to add additional sweeteners. [American Indian Health and Diet Project, date unknown]

Instead of sugar, the recipe calls for honey to sweeten the wojapi, if you need anything at all.  It is this recipe that I decided to use.  Hell, I could use less sugar in my diet, too!

The Recipe: Wojapi (Plains Indian Fruit Pudding) - Sugar-Free Version

To make this version of wojapi you will need:

* fruit (in this case strawberries - I went to a farm not far from work a few months ago and picked these myself - a wide shallow cardboard box for $10 per pound - and I had these beauties waiting in the freezer since then.  This seems like a great use for them.  These two bags of frozen strawberries amounted to roughly 4 to 5 cups).
* water (this is one of the recipes calling for a smaller ratio of water - only a quarter cup)
* cornstarch (if you want to thicken it the faster way, which Mr. Impatient here would prefer)
* honey (to sweeten, literally as needed)

Take your strawberries (and thaw them if they're frozen), and mash them until pulpy.

You will then add the strawberries and water to a large pot, bring to a boil...

...and then simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally.

After half an hour it boiled down to this.

While you're simmering it, add some honey to taste.  I added about four spoonfuls, which sweetened it a little bit.

Stir in the honey, and add more to taste if you want.

If this isn't thick enough for you (or me), mix some cornstarch in a little bowl with some water.

Add the cornstarch water to the wojapi and stir it in.  I did this at the end, after I turned it off.

Stir in and serve up!

You could eat the wojapi straight up, or use it as a topping for many things.  Recipes I saw recommended it as a topping for frybread, ice cream or biscuits.  I tried it on freshly made paneer cheese.  This would also go great with Greek yogurt, or on that Czech Christmas bread I just made not long ago.  It is good stuff.  Find something to put it on and eat away.

Sources:

Abourezk, Kevin.  "Ponca Tribe to honor Milford for historical gesture".  Lincoln Journal Star.  Posted May 29, 2011.

American Indian Health and Diet Project.  "Traditional Indigenous Recipes: Wojapi".  American Indian Health and Diet Project, date unknown.  Copyright 2011, American Indian Health and Diet Project

Carson, Dale. New Native American Cooking.  Random House: New York, 1996.

CzechMate Diary (Tanja, blogger).  "Czech christmas magic: Vanocka / Kouzlo Vanoc: Vanocka".  CzechMate Diary.  Posted December 11, 2008.

Hill, Cheryl Joy.  "Blueberry Wojapi".  NativeTech.org: Indigenous Food and Traditional Recipes.  Date posted unknown.  Copyright 2011 NativeTech.

Nebraska Folklife Network.  "Recipes: Traditional Foods of Nebraska Ethnic Groups".  Date unknown.  Copyright 2011, Nebraska Folklife Network

Nebraska Guide (Nebraska-Guide.Info).  "As American as Apple Pie".  Date unknown.  Copyright 2004-2011, Interatctive Internet Websites, Inc.

NebraskaStudies.Org.  "The Immigrant Experience: The Czechs Move to Nebraska".  The Homestead Act: Who Were The Settlers? From Nebraska Studies.Org, date unknown.

Rader, Jim.  "Brief History of the Reuben Sandwich". The Reuben Realm, date unknown.

Red Star Yeast.  "Vanocka".  Red Star Yeast, date unknown.  Copyright 2011, Red Star Yeast.

Stern, Jane & Michael (Roadfood.com).  "Runza".  Roadfood.com, date unknown.  Copyright 2011, Roadfood.com.

Stradley, Linda.  "Reuben Sandwich - History of Reuben Sandwich".  What's Cooking America (WhatsCookingAmerica.net), 2004.

Weisman, Karen.  "Baking a Four-Strand Challah Bread Loaf".  eHow.com, date unknown.  Copyright 2011, eHow.com.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Nebraska" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Nebraska".