Second of two parts

In the midst of falling snow, Karen Jones donned wool garments and wool-lined leather shoes, pulled a blanket around herself, and sat on the snow-covered ground. She was demonstrating how Native Americans cooked a one-pot meal over an open fire using lightweight copper pots and dried seeds.

“They used whatever they had - yellow squash, corn, meat, maple sugar, dried fruit,” says the re-enactor of historical Native American customs who volunteers at the Stranahan Arboretum during the annual Maple Sugaring Festival.

“They used a lot of brass and copper pots with lids,” says Ms. Jones, a pharmacist. “These were lighter than iron and packed easier. They did one-pot cooking. They didn't have meal times. When you were hungry, you ate.”

She notes that Eastern Woodland Indians were farmers who had a varied diet. “They grew corn, beans, and squash, known as the `three sisters' [the basics of almost every meal]. All over the Eastern Woodland, Indians gathered nuts, berries, mushrooms, roots, and cattails. They even cooked cattail soup and put maple sugar in it to make it taste better.”

She bases her presentation on Carolyn Raine's book A Woodland Feast (Penobscot Press), which will be sold for $15 at the arboretum during public weekends of the Maple Sugaring Festival, noon to 5 p.m. March 22 and 29.

She will demonstrate a one-pot dish made with beef, wild rice, corn, and squash boiled like stew. Maple sugar will be added as a condiment.

“Sugar cakes, which they could store, were made by an evaporation process,” says Ms. Jones. “They went to the sugar camp where the sugar trees were for a period of weeks. They lived and worked there to get enough maple sugar for the tribe for a whole year. A great deal of sap boils down to make sugar. They had to collect wood to keep the fire going plus their daily activities.”

The sap runs in mid-February through March when temperatures are above freezing. It is collected east of the Mississippi River from the lower provinces of Canada through northern Georgia, according to Ms. Raine, an expert on Eastern Woodland tribes' foods of the 17th and 18th centuries. (Her great-grandmother was from the Seneca tribe, one of the Eastern Woodland tribes.)

“Contrary to what people think, the tribes were not totally isolated from each other,” she says. “They packaged food items and traded maple sugar and wild rice. It's fascinating what a commodity food was.”

For maple sugar, the trees were tapped and sap was collected. The sugar was extracted, poured into birch-bark molds, and hardened. “The cakes last indefinitely,” Ms. Raine says. “Then you break off pieces and throw it in a pot of stew.”

Native Americans also were fond of bear oil as a flavoring for food, she says. “They rendered bear fat into oil and added huge quantities of maple syrup as a dipping sauce.”

Ms. Raine's information is based on research from captivity narratives, journals, and oral tradition. “Captivity narratives are descriptive on types of foods, how they were cooked. These were even cross-referenced with horticultural studies.” Sometimes the writer did not know the name of a plant but described its use and appearance.

Examples of recipes with maple sugar in her book are Stewed Plums and Corn and Duck Stew. (See recipes at right.)

When Karen Jones demonstrates Native American cooking for students during the Maple Sugaring Festival, the lodge setup often includes a conical dome-shaped building made of saplings covered with cattail mats. Knives are made from bone. Dishes are made from wooden trenches, gourds, turtle shell, and makuk - a bark container used for gathering.

“Before the Native Americans started trading with Europeans, they had no metal; they used stone and bone tools. They didn't have cloth. After contact with the Europeans, they traded hides,” she says.

“I'm dressed with wool because they gave up hides for cloth. Wool is a good insulator,” she says of her skirt, which is trimmed in metal discs. “They traded the silver trim. It was a form of money. They wore their wealth.”

Among her supply of authentic foods is wild rice, parched corn, which would be hydrated, maple sugar cakes, and dried berries.

“They could have cooked inside. Often the conical [building] has a hole at the top, but it gets smoky. You wouldn't want to be there more than you had to.”

As for cooking with maple sugar, “It was considered one of the prime condiments used in food,” says Ms. Jones. “Any tribe in the Northeast would do maple sugaring if there were trees anywhere around.”

One-pot meals were the norm. “These were prepared in the morning. They put in the pot whatever meat they hunted. If there was more, they would dry it and make jerky. Beans were dried in the lodge by hanging. When dry, these were stored in baskets.”

The diet was simple: nuts, berries, roots, wild rice, meats, and cattails, and they grew corn, beans, and squash.

For more information on Native American foods, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis (317-636-9378) holds food events twice a year.

Each fall, Harvest Celebration dinners are held. A local chef is given traditional food items and recipes available to and used by people in the past; then the chef creates a contemporary version. Last October, guests and members of the Miami Nation of Indiana feasted on duck breast, butternut squash, wild rice, sweet potato soup, and a gingersnap pumpkin cream tart.

In June, the Indian Market features Indiana's Native American Food and recipes, as well as artists' booths, arts and crafts, performances, and storytellers. Last year, foods sold included buffalo burgers, corn soup, fry bread, and veggie tacos made with fry bread.

Ingredients used by Native Americans are common in contemporary cooking. Culinary techniques have expanded beyond one-pot cooking and the variety of ingredients today lend layers of flavor.

For example, Acorn Squash Stuffed with Wild Rice is lightly flavored with maple syrup. Chicken Breast with Dried Cherry Sauce and Wild Rice begins with traditionally prepared wild rice; in this recipe the chicken with cherry sauce can be flavored with maple syrup or brown sugar.

First Published February 25, 2003, 12:20 p.m.