Mawiomi - A gathering place for sharing foods, recipes and stories.

Community works with elders to learn traditional remedies for cancer patients

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 19:44:00 +0000

Community works with elders to learn traditional remedies for cancer patients

‘When you take care of the land, the land will also take care of you,’ says Melinda Laboucan

By Priscilla Hwang, CBC News Posted: May 31, 2017 12:00 PM CT

Spruce buds are boiled for the liquid which is used to relieve colds, sore throats, coughing and chest ailments. The longer it boils the more potent it is. (Submitted by Melinda Laboucan)

Melinda Laboucan lost her mother to cancer a few years ago.

Today, she's out on the land with elders collecting spruce gum, buds and chaga mushrooms to help cancer patients in her community find traditional remedies.

"I lost my mom back in 2011 ... and seeing how other people had stepped out to come support us, I've always wanted to return that favour back," said Laboucan, community cancer co-ordinator for Goba in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T.

Goba is a group of volunteers who aim to raise awareness and support for those with cancer. One of the group's priorities is to promote traditional medicine, passed down for centuries.

Elders teaching community members how to pick new spruce buds for traditional remedies. (Submitted by Melinda Laboucan)

"[It's] lots of fun, lots of laughter," said Laboucan about learning from the elders. "They like to teach and they like to share their knowledge."

But the elders teach more than just remedies.

"Before we pick it, the elders mentioned to us that we have to make an offering to the land," Laboucan said.

She said they would offer the land tobacco, food, tea or coffee — or anything they have — to respect and honour it.

"When you take care of the land, the land will also take care of you."

The elders brought the group back to the kitchen and taught them how to prepare the medicine.

Salves and teas

The two main ingredients the elders use on cancer patients are chaga mushrooms and spruce.

Spruce gum is turned into a salve or cream and is used to treat cuts, burns, and discomfort on the skin — especially after radiation treatment.

"It's very good for keeping the burns from getting any more worse, and to soothe the pain," said Roger Plouffe, a member of Goba who has a background in science.

Spruce buds are boiled to make a potent liquid that can treat coughs, colds and sore throats.

Plouffe said chaga mushrooms are typically found on birch trees. He said the ones grown in the North are a better quality than mushrooms grown in warmer temperatures.

Chaga mushrooms are a powerful ingredient to treat cancer patients. (Submitted by Melinda Laboucan)

They're used on cancer patients to reduce swelling and to build up the immune system. Elders make tea from the mushrooms, "but must not boil the water" because it kills much of the benefits. Chaga can also help build appetite for patients, said Plouffe.

Because the remedies are natural, they don't seem to have side effects, said Plouffe. "Unless you take too much of them, then usually you get diarrhea."

'Doctors amazed'

"I've seen what the medicine can do. It is absolutely amazing," said Plouffe, who recalled helping an individual with an infection on their hands. It was healed the next day, after applying spruce gum salve on them.

Elders and community members from Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., are back in the kitchen to learn how to make traditional remedies. (Submitted by Melinda Laboucan)

"The doctors were amazed," said Plouffe. "It's very, very powerful. And science is now starting to figure out why."

Plouffe said doctors and nurses in the community are respectful of the medicine of the land, and are working together with Goba to treat patients.

Plouffe is currently documenting the remedies, stories and techniques. The group hopes to publish it for the public in the future.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/traditional-remedies-cancer-fort-good-hope-1.4137741

aug. 23/2107

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 14:54:00 +0000

Pre-Contact Native American Food with Mariah Gladstone

from Forest Clay Productions

Pre-Contact Native American Food can change the game for Native People. It is healthier, more sustainable, and can get people back in touch with their indigenous roots compared to modern introduced foods. Join Mariah Gladstone as she prepares a pre-contact meal consisting of bison and wild rice cakes drizzled with a blackberry and sarvis berry sweet corn relish and green beans on the side.

Original Source:

https://vimeo.com/210045475

Rankin Inlet caribou leaves state dinner guests 'speechless'

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:18:00 +0000

Original story on the states dinner can be found on cbc but from my experience many stories and links go dead and we eventually loose access to many wonderful stories. So I am preserving this story, because smoked infused caribou meet like this meal is definately on my bucket lists of foods I would love to experience.


Caribou from Rankin Inlet served at Tuesday's state dinner was so delicious it apparently left guests speechless. (WO Ronald Duchesne, Rideau Hall © OSGG, 2016)

Rankin Inlet caribou. Hot smoked with dried heather. Roasted at a low temperature. Served rare with maple sauce and foie gras butter sauce.
That's what was on the menu at Tuesday night's state dinner at Rideau Hall to honour Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The event, hosted by Governor General David Johnston, was also attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and around 100 other guests.


Rideau Hall's Executive Chef Louis Charest puts the finishing touches on a platter which includes caribou loin from Rankin Inlet. It was served at Tuesday night's state dinner. (WO Ronald Duchesne, Rideau Hall © OSGG, 2016)

"Of everything served last night, the caribou is the one that got the most feedback. I'm still hearing it today and I'll be hearing about it for a few days," said Louis Charest, Rideau Hall's executive chef.
"Apparently, some people at the table were speechless," he said. "Somebody was eating it and they couldn't put words to it.
"I wanted the main course to highlight a more different protein. I thought the main focus should be on caribou," he said.
The caribou was sourced from Kivalliq Arctic Foods in Rankin Inlet. Only six kilograms of meat was needed to serve 106 guests.
Charest was inspired to hot smoke, or quickly smoke, the caribou after a visit to Kugluktuk last summer.

Caribou from Rankin Inlet (right) was served at Tuesday's state dinner alongside other foods from across the country, including a Niagara prosciutto, lobster and sweetbread pavé (left) and early summer vegetables. (WO Ronald Duchesne, Rideau Hall © OSGG, 2016)

While he was there, he cooked with community members, including a feast with caribou on the grill and heather thrown on the barbeque.
Charest had a friend send dried heather to Ottawa so he could recreate the experience.
He was also looking to bridge two cultures.
"In Mexico, there are a lot of meats that are cooked around a fireplace and a lot of wood smoke, but slowly over a long period of time," said Charest.
"So that smokiness I thought to me made sense to highlight a little bit of something that both countries would have in common," he said.
This isn't the first time Charest has included food from the Arctic on his menus. Arctic char, although often farmed, has been used. Or deep fried maktaaq poutine on a stick at the Arctic Inspiration Prize reception.
"Personally, it's very important to showcase the Arctic," Charest said, adding people often overlook it when composing menus. He's hoping to change that as more people become aware of what the Arctic has to offer.
"In a way I think it adds a little exotic element to have products from the Arctic showcased on the menu. It's Canadian exotic products because they're so hard to find."

Indian Ice Cream - soap berries

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:08:00 +0000

Well I have not been one to be posting much on the blog these days but food security and food security continue to inspire me and have been feeling more and more compelled to be sharing food stories and especially indigenous food stories more and more lately.

On a hot day like today, it is especially motivating to share an indian icecream recipe using traditional berries and something I just have to try soon. I did not write this story or recipe but simply sharing story already shared on Traditional Native Healing. Its a pleasure to read stories and amazing stories and food experiences that use our original sovereign foods , techniques, knowledge, etc... I just LOVE IT. So many thanks to the original story tellers, please continue to share knowledge relating to our original foods, seeds, medicines and more and keep our circle strong.

Soapberries: their benefits and uses

Hi everyone!

Soapberries

I was busy in the past few days and have not had a chance to add new content. However, as I went to my usual Tuesday night Pow wow, I gather some intel for this post Indeed, I talked natural remedies and plant based products with a merchant there. As she was whipping a pink foamy mixture with an electric mixer, I got curious. So I ask what it was. Her response: soapberry indian ice cream. Well I had seen this foamy “ice cream” before at Pow wows but had never known what it was. As she told me that soapberries are thought to contain numerous positive and healing properties, I decided to research them a bit.

Native soapberries or buffaloberries or foamberries

So as I did my research, I came to the realization that there are two types of soapberries. The kind I am discussing here are the soapberries using by Native nations, especially on the West Coast. They look like the berries above and below, a bright red/pink fruit. The other kind of soapberries are also referred to soapnuts and are used as ingredients in natural detergents. Yes that’s right. That type of soapberries are contained in shells containing saponin, a compound responsible for some of their healing properties and cleaning properties (as it has foaming properties).

The “native” soapberries grow in a shrub that can survive harsh climates and pretty much any kind of soil. The shrub itself is about 3 to 6 feet high with loose branches. A soapberry shrub will need about 5 to 6 years to produce fruits. it produces a fruit that is often described as bitter (I can attest to that…) but when eaten has been reported as being an effective mosquito repellent. Go figure! Berries are collected from the shrub by placing a tarp under the shrub and beating the branches bearing fruits with a stick. Only the very ripe ones will fall down.

So what can soapberries do?

As I said, soapberries are used by many nations, here in BC at least (like the Lillooet nation or the Shuswap nation). Not only are they eaten in dishes as they contain high vitamin C (like the indian ice cream described below) but they have also been used by native people to treat high blood pressure, digestive disorders, acne and bringing on childbirth to name a few. However, as the native soapberries or buffaloberries also contain saponin, they must be consumed in moderation as they can upset your stomach. They can also be used externally to make cleansers or even shampoo.

But wait, there is more!! The roots, leaves and bark can also be used medicinally. Boiled inner bark can be used as a laxative or a infusion of the bark can be used as an eyewash (remember it has cleansing properties). The brew has also been used to soothe an upset stomach, to treat stomach cancer, constipation and venereal diseases. Similarly, a brew using the stems and leaves can be used as a wash for cuts, swellings and sores. The roots of his little miraculous shrub also have an anti-hemorrhagic property, in other words they stop bleeding as well as purge and cleanse. They have also been used as an aid to childbirth and to treat tuberculosis. Jeez that shrub does a lot!!! Who wants a soapberry shrub in their backyard now?

Ok but how do we eat them? Indian ice cream!

Well soapberries are rarely eaten directly, due to their bitter taste. They are most commonly mixed into something. They can be crushed and be used to make lemonade or tea. And yes they can be found in indian ice cream! Yes I know you are all wondering what the heck I am talking about. Let me explain by reminding you that soapberries contain saponin, which gives them a foamy quality. Meaning that when beaten, they become foamy. Vigorously beating them raises the foam level. So the soapberries are crushed then can be mixed in different ways. More than one recipe is out there. The woman I saw at the Pow wow was beating hers with water and sugar. That’s it. The result looks like the picture below. I included a larger image so you can see its texture. It’s basically as light as air and is often eaten in large gatherings like Pow wows. It is served in little cups. What does it taste like?? Well…..I can only describe what I tasted. The original taste is somewhat sweet but then an ashy/bitter aftertaste sets in. I was told that it is normal to have that aftertaste and that one gets used to it. I can’t say it was bad, as the texture is very interesting and fun but one cup was enough. I will continue to try it though to see if the ashy taste goes away.

But as I said, there are variances in how one makes indian ice cream. Indeed, Alaskan natives call it akutaq or agutak. It is basically salmonberries (similar to soapberries) mixed with fat. Yes you read that right. Berries and fat. It can be animal fat or good old Crisco. Same principle of crushing the berries and beating them with fat. The consistency is less smooth and more lumpy, like you can see below. What do they call it? Well Eskimo Ice cream of course.

Have you ever had soapberries or indian ice cream?? Share your comments or experience below!

Thanks to seed savers, Glass Gem corn exists

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 15:50:00 +0000

Thanks to seed savers, Glass Gem corn exists

This stunning, multi-colored corn is real and edible, and its seeds are now in high demand. It's a good thing someone spent time saving the seeds over the generations when the variety was out of our collective consciousness.

By: Robin Shreeves

April 15, 2014, 12:47 p.m.

Mother Nature Network

Photo: gnotalex/flickr

Corn on the cob is one of summer’s biggest treats, but there’s rarely a surprise when you peel the husk (unless of course a worm has made it’s home in it). That’s not the case with Glass Gem corn. Peeling the husk from this variety of corn is like unwrapping artwork each time.

What is Glass Gem corn? It’s an old variety of corn with kernels that come in an absolutely stunning array of colors. It’s also a reminder that there are varieties of fruits and vegetables that we’re in danger of losing, and it would be a real shame if we lost them.

This multi-colored corn was brought back into our collective consciousness a few years ago when a photo of it went viral. Business Insider has the story of this corn (along with some beautiful photos) that an Oklahoma farmer named Carl Barnes has been growing for many years. He’s half-Cherokee, and he wanted to reconnect with his heritage, so he exchanged Native American corn seed with people from all over the country and started growing corn with seeds the colors of the rainbow.

His efforts were successful but went under the radar until 1994 when another farmer named Greg Schoen obtained some of this rainbow corn seed from Barnes and grew it himself. His photo of a particularly beautiful ear of corn went viral in 2012, and now demand for the seeds is high. Native Seeds sells Glass Gem seeds for $7.95 for a 50-seed packet, and the seeds they sell come directly from the seed gifted to them from Schoen. Anyone can now grow this beautiful variety, save the seeds, and pass them on, to make sure these seeds don’t get forgotten again. By saving the seeds from specific-colored kernels, people have been able to play with the colors, creating new color combinations in the Glass Gem corn.

This corn isn’t the type you’d slather with butter, sprinkle with salt, and chomp into on a summer evening. It’s tougher than that, so it’s used for popcorn and for grinding into cornmeal.

The story of how Glass Gem corn was rediscovered is important because it highlights the need to save seeds and swap seeds with others to keep produce varieties alive.

According to Food Bank, there are about 100,000 global plant varieties (edible and non-edible) that are endangered. Saving seeds and making sure that a large variety of plants continue to thrive is important for agricultural biodiversity, but its importance goes further.

Saving seeds doesn’t only help improve agricultural biodiversity, but helps farmers and researchers find varieties of crops that grow better in different regions, especially as the impacts of climate change become evident. Many farmers groups, nonprofits, and governments are conserving crops in their own communities — there are currently more than 1,000 known seed banks, collaboratives, and exchanges around the world.

Food Bank has a list of 15 seed-saving initiatives, including several that you can purchase seeds from. You can also go to a local seed swap or swap with others online. Once you get your seeds, the idea is to grow the plants, save the seeds, keep some for yourself and swap or give to others to perpetuate the diversity of seeds that are in circulation.

Do you grow any varieties of plants that you didn’t know existed until you came upon their seeds somewhere?

ReMatriate

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 15:17:00 +0000

I love food stories, culture, cultural pride and stories about Rematriating Our Nation. Here's a great site about restoring, reliving, reviving, keep our cultural ways alive and well, some great harvesting and good stories too. You will be seeing more of me sharing more stories from this site for sure.

Original story and photo from this facebook page.

Peyton Straker is an Ojibwe member of the Keeseekoose First Nation (Saskatchewan) and has lived in Somba K'e, Denendeh (NWT) since birth, where she works as the Indigenous Students Advocacy Worker for Yellowknife public schools. She is an artist who focuses on traditional pelt and hide work with animals that her and her partner harvest together. Her jewellery line SavageSalvage Jewellery, purposes: caribou antlers, muskox horns, bones and teeth from her personal hunts, turning them into contemporary wearable Indigenous art. Peyton is also the NWT regional representative for ReMatriate.

www.peytonstraker.wix.com/savagesalvage
www.facebook.com/savagesalvagejewellery

Photos by: Kyle Enzoe, traditional harvester and caribou monitor from Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation

#ReMatriate #ReMatriateCampaign #WeAreStrongWomen #ReMatriation

A CULTURAL FEAST AWAITS AT DAL'S ANNUAL MAWIO'MI CELEBRATION

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 13:39:00 +0000

A CULTURAL FEAST AWAITS AT DAL'S ANNUAL MAWIO'MI CELEBRATION

Marie Visca - September 25, 2015

Dal News

A dancer at the 2013 Mawio'mi. (Photo by Nick Pearce)

It’s the time of year again when the Studley quad will be transformed into a colourful celebration of culture, diversity and heritage. On Sept. 30, the Dalhousie Native Student Association will carry out its sixth annual Mawio’mi in commemoration of Treaty Day.

In Mi’kmaq culture, the word Mawio’mi means gathering and signifies one of the most important social and governance systems that the Mi’kmaq people have. Indeed, the upcoming Mawio’mi – or “powwow” – will facilitate a community gathering of both native and non-native individuals to embrace the practices and history of the indigenous peoples of Halifax.

Attendees of the daylong event will be treated to a cultural feast and refreshments in the Studley Gym and will have the chance to enjoy a ceremonial raising of the Mi’kmaq flag alongside traditional drummers, dancers and crafters.

Beyond the campus gathering, the Mawio’mi at Dal also kicks off festivities that are going on elsewhere in the city. In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada proclaimed Oct. 1 of every year to commemorate and celebrate the Treaty of 1752. On this day, the Mi’kmaq will gather in downtown Halifax for a mass at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Basilica and a march to legislature where another Mi’kmaq flag will be raised.

Dal's growing support

For Diana Lewis, program coordinator of Dal’s new Indigenous Studies minor, the annual Mawio’mi serves as a good indication of the university’s growing support for Mi’kmaq culture and indigenous culture in general.

“To have the launching of the Indigenous minor in the same year that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission comes out with a recommendation that the education system is not doing enough to promote the history of its indigenous peoples is very timely,” she says. “I feel that Dalhousie is now very much on board with trying to demonstrate efforts of reconciliation.”

In addition to the annual Mawio’mi and this year’s launch of the minor, the university is involved in the organization of the second Indigenous Speakers series. The series brings indigenous leaders to Halifax to discuss contemporary issues facing indigenous communities.

Dr. Audra Simpson, author of the award-winning book Mohawk Interruptus, kicked off the series Wednesday evening. Next up on Oct. 15 will be world-renowned educational theorist Dr. Marie Battiste with a talk on decolonizing education.

“I hope this trend continues,” Lewis says. “This is a good sign of what’s to come and just the start of more wonderful things that Dalhousie will support.”

“HONEY, PASS THE MAKTAAQ”

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 13:29:00 +0000

“HONEY, PASS THE MAKTAAQ”

Feasting on YK's offerings, Inuit style

EDGEYK — OCTOBER 1, 2015

EDGEYK

by Juanita Taylor-Towtongie | photos by Angela Gzowski

“Neco, can you carve this turkey? Let’s get eating soon!” I ask, more like tell, my husband who is finishing up his Thanksgiving tasks. Eventually, he lays the perfectly browned stuffed turkey we bought at Fancy Meats beside the cherished country food on our dining room floor, alongside the sharp knives and ului (the plural form for ulu, an Inuit women’s knife) we’ve placed on flattened pieces of cardboard.

That’s how Inuit feast. No plates. No forks. Sitting next to and across from one another, slicing pieces of the Inuit niqai (Inuit country food) including frozen caribou meat, boiled seal meat, boiled caribou ribs and caribou tongue. There’s also maktaaq (beluga whale) and arctic char. At this Thanksgiving feast, there are about 30 guests, people from all walks of life, and we’re ecstatic, because there is also dry caribou meat and dry arctic char, or pipsi.

Neco axes chunks of caribou meat for the women – that’s just courtesy – making it easier to cut into smaller pieces with their ului. There’s sushi-style bowls of soya sauce for dipping. And salt for sprinkling.

This fall marks our sixth year living in Yellowknife. We had planned on staying for two. We left our home in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to further our careers; Neco is a journeyman power lineman and I am a journalist. It’s been working out… mostly. The education system is more challenging for our children and there are more organized activities for them to do. I can get my nails done, a good haircut, a coffee from McDonald’s and even wine with a nice dinner at a restaurant.

But, like most Inuit here, we’ve had to make adjustments.

Our house is in Range Lake, a paved neighbourhood with sidewalks that looks nothing like the treeless, rugged tundra and the windy shores of Hudson’s Bay that make up Kangiqliniq, or Rankin Inlet. Once inside though, when we’re feasting on country food, we feel closer to our Inuit roots.

When we lived in Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit, my husband hunted for us. Since moving here, he hasn’t been able to hunt caribou because of the territorial government’s ban, so we fill our freezers courtesy of other hunters back home. It’s one of the reasons we constantly wrestle with the idea of moving back to Nunavut, so Neco can hunt like his father does and like his grandfather did before him. Another reason is family. We always feel the tug from them to move back. My mom lives there and same with Neco’s parents, the Towtongies. Yes, as in Cathy Towtongie. His mother is the president at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the organization that administers the land claim agreement. In some ways, Yellowknife still doesn’t feel permanent.

At the end of every feast, it is time for tea. Our friend Angela Hovak Johnston made fried bannock and she’s brought a bowl full. Anyone who has tasted Angela’s bannock knows it’s like dessert. It’s a skill she learned from living a traditional life, having spent her first seven years in a cabin in Umingmaktok (Bay Chimo), now an abandoned outpost camp in Bathurst Inlet, the place she most calls “home.”

“Living in the outpost camp, I loved it,” she says. “Living off the land, a very physical way of life, but then when we got sent to school, then we got used to that town-living, easy-living. You get all the taste buds ‘cause you tried new stuff, so you crave all the new stuff. But when we were living in Bay Chimo you didn’t really have all those cravings, and you were good with one big meal a day; with some berries here and there, but basically living on water and tea.”

Those fond early childhood memories turned sour when Angela was faced with a different form of survival: life at a residential school in Cambridge Bay that included abuse, even sexual abuse.

“That was hard, it was hard because it was a bunch of us little kids living in a hostel with hostel parents,” she says.

She worked through those horrors by breaking the silence around them. As a performing artist, she throat-sings and recorded an album in 2006 as a way to heal from the abuse at residential school. To see her today, Angela is a happy, healthy, courageous 40-year-old woman who sews beautiful creations such as seal skin mitts, parkas and kamiit, traditional Inuit boots – skills she learned from her mother and aunts who gave her lots of encouragement.

She and her husband have three sons. They’ve been in Yellowknife six years now. You may have seen her. She has traditional Inuit tattoos on her face and hands. The “V” on her forehead was a common design back in the days before contact with white people. There are lines on her face and hands that represent her sons. There are also symbols of traditional Inuit tools used for seal and caribou hunting.

Angela decided to get the traditional tattoos when she was living in Nova Scotia, where her husband, Mike, is from, and where they lived before moving to Yellowknife. Prior to that, they met in Kugluktuk where he was teaching.

She tested the markings by first penciling them in with eyeliner and going out in public.

“When I first got my tattoos on my face when we were living in Nova Scotia, people would ask my why I did that to my pretty face. But when I came here to Yellowknife, I had no questions. I didn’t have to question myself. And when I go home (to Kugluktuk), people remember their grandmothers or great-grandmothers and share a story about them. They’re thankful that I am carrying on this tradition.”

And that’s one of the reasons why she likes living in Yellowknife. People are accepting of the diversity of cultures.

The Johnston’s don’t visit Kugluktuk much because of the high cost of travel. But because Yellowknife is the hub for the Western Arctic, family and friends come often, either for medical care or while passing through on their way to southern destinations. Even so, she misses seeing elders around town. When her youngest son Bailey, now in Grade 6, finishes school, their plans are to move back to Kugluktuk where her husband will teach and she will be able to get back into fishing derbies and picking berries and learning different sewing techniques from her elders.

Davidee Qaumariaq plans to move back to Iqaluit after finishing an apprenticeship at Polar Tech.

Similarly, 24-year-old Davidee Qaumariaq plans on moving back to his home in Iqaluit after he earns his ticket as a small engine mechanic. He came to Yellowknife last November to visit his girlfriend and landed an apprenticeship opportunity with Polar Tech a month later. He works on snowmobiles, all terrain vehicles, outboard motors and Harleys. Davidee is entering into his first year of the apprenticeship this fall in Quebec, and that comes with studying online.

“I really want to commit to this because any other job that I had in Iqaluit, I haven’t had a good opportunity, so when my boss said ‘I’ll apprentice you,’ I said ‘alright.’ And he said, ‘You gonna stay?’ And I said ‘Yep.’”

His family in Iqaluit is OK with that decision because he’s been able to go home a number of times for visits. His buddies in Iqaluit are also mechanics so he gets to show off his new skills.

“You use computers to work on your sleds. Every time I went home I brought a computer with me and showed my buddies all this. It felt good knowing I knew more than they did because before it was always they knew more than I did. I’ve grown in being a much better mechanic, just from this job.”

While Davidee keeps his eye on the prize – talking about starting his own business in Nunavut when all is done – homesickness kicks in every now and then. Not speaking Inuktitut every day is another change.

“I spoke a lot of Inuktitut when I was in Iqaluit and I never do it here. Our neighbours are Inuit, at first we weren’t too sure but one day they had a bunch of people over and a bunch of kids were playing outside and a little girl starts yelling, ‘Anaanaa! Anaana!’ (Mom, Mom) and then my girlfriend freaked out saying, ‘They’re Inuk!’”

An avid hunter and snowmobile racer, he misses hunting in Nunavut the most; preying on seals, whales, caribou, fish and geese. He’s still waiting to catch his first polar bear. His instincts make him want to kill ptarmigan when he sees them around on Yellowknife’s snowy streets.

His employer and co-workers make living in Yellowknife easier by giving him the time off to go home, and lending him their boats to go fishing. He’s not a fan of portaging but he does get out on the lakes where he’s seen bears and wolves, and he’s getting used to the trees.

Apart from the high cost of living, Davidee likes what Yellowknife has to offer. There are more activities, such as bowling and driving out of the city to Rae for soft ice cream – things you can’t do on Baffin Island. Plus, Yellowknife has a “northern feel” to it because there are so many aboriginal people.

The 2011 Statistics Canada National Household Survey shows four in 10 Inuit live in large, urban centres. Yellowknife is tied with Ottawa for having the fourth largest Inuit population at 735. Edmonton is first, with 1, 115 Inuit, followed by Montreal with 900. St. John’s has 680.

Not all of Yellowknife’s 735 Inuit migrated here from elsewhere. Tiffany Ayalik was born and raised in the capital. Her father is from Kugluktuk, and her mom is from Ontario. Her mother is the one who taught Tiffany and her siblings about Inuit culture, including how to build an igloo and how to hunt and skin a caribou, having been in the North for over 30 years. Ayalik is amazed, and grateful, for that.

“Anything that I did learn about my Inuit culture came from my white mom from Ontario who did her best to try and immerse me and my siblings in a culture that isn’t hers, but that she felt is really important for us to learn about,” she says. “So I just have such mad respect for my mom for doing that. She’s always told me and my siblings that we’re in a very gifted situation, that we can take the best of both worlds.”

I discovered I have a lot in common with Tiffany. Both our grandmothers were born in igloos. Both our moms raised us and our siblings as a single parent. And we both come from blended cultures. And, like me, she doesn’t speak Inuktitut fluently, yet she starred in a play called Night, a story about youth suicide – a problem all too common across the North – that is performed solely in her father’s native language.

“It’s one of those things where it was extremely daunting at first, and I was very intimidated, but I just thought to myself, stop being a baby,” she recalls. “You had people speaking Inuktitut in your house all the time, you know more than you think you know, your ear knows it and your mouth knows it, but you just haven’t been taught it. So those weren’t foreign sounds to me, it would be different if it was a Swahili play or something.”

Martha Kyak from Pond Inlet translated her lines and recorded them so that Tiffany could memorize from repetition… listening over and over… and over and over.

She remains close to her grandmother and her aunts in Kugluktuk, going there every year with her mom to teach the techniques of paddling a canoe and kayak. And she offers storytelling workshops. As much as she loves Nunavut, Tiffany doesn’t plan on living there. Her heart is with her man who lives in Greenland. A successful actor himself, she beams when she talks about Greenland’s triumphs in keeping a strong Inuit culture, in part because it had a gentler colonization period compared to Nunavut’s.

“We’ve been through so much and still despite that we have a tenacity and a vivacious energy to survive and despite the effen cold winters and brutal conditions, we’re still here. Nice try, government! We’re still here, we’re still annoying!” she says with a laugh.

Like Angela, Tiffany has been using the arts to help struggling kids make sense of their changing worlds. The 27-year-old throat-singer wants to use her voice, skills and talents to address serious issues like abuse and suicide and to battle negativity. She likes pushing boundaries, but says she tries to be respectful at the same time.

My family and I try to be respectful too; respectful of the fact we are living on Dene land.

And we take it one day at a time. Well, more like one year at a time. My husband and I tell each other: It doesn’t matter where we are, as long as we’re together, we’re home.

Our time with other Inuit who are also “just visiting” Yellowknife, times like when we feast together at Thanksgiving, are crucial to staying connected to our culture.

I survey the remnants of our Thanksgiving meal after our guests have left. Every scrap of country food has disappeared from the spread. No one even touched the turkey.

Students revive extinct squash with 800-year-old seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 13:19:00 +0000

Kwe, Well I am going to start sharing more on Indigenous Food History and Amazing food stories, recipes and more.

Students revive extinct squash with 800-year-old seeds

Seeds found during an archaeological dig on First Nations land revive a long-lost varietal.

Mother Nature Network

The seed that grew this squash were preserved for 800 years in a clay pot in Wisconsin.

Gardens may be popping up in schools everywhere, but one school garden in Winnipeg, Canada is making news after growing a squash thought to be extinct for hundreds of years.

It all started with an archaeological dig on First Nations land that unearthed a small clay vessel estimated to be about 800 years old. Inside the vessel, the archaeologists found preserved seeds of an ancient squash.

Students at Canadian Mennonite University successfully grew one large squash from the seeds, but they aren't stopping there. The plan is to save the seeds from that first revived squash and then grow even more squash from those. The goal is to never let this squash go extinct again, according to APTN National News.

Brian Etkin, Coordinator of the Garden of Learning in Winnipeg, sees this revived squash as much more than a vegetable.

"This squash is representative of a tribe of a large community and everybody in that community having a place and food being a right on citizenship," said Etkin.

Brian Etkin holds the ancient squash (Photo: APTN)

When the seeds were first put into that clay vessel all those years ago, they were likely meant to be used much sooner than now, but the discovery of them is a reminder that saving seeds is the best way to ensure plant varietals survive. The fruits and vegetables seen in the grocery store and even at the farmers markets are just a fraction of the varieties that exist.

Over the past 100 years or so, we've decreased the variety of produce grown and instead focused our efforts in cultivating species that produce a high yield or are able to travel long distances. But, we're discovering we're close to losing so many varieties, and seed savers are working to bring back varieties that most people have forgotten.

Thanks to the ancient indigenous person who put those seeds in a clay vessel hundreds of years ago, this squash varietal won't be lost to history. And thanks to more modern seed savers, we're reviving and preserving other fruits and vegetables — like this exquisite-looking Glass Gem corn:

Photo: gnotalex/flickr

Turtle Fruit Platter

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:14:00 +0000

When I seen this beautiful Turtle Fruit Platter Photo shared on facebook, I just had to try, I shared it with the comment or not to myself "Must try this with kids". A day or two later my sister posted pics of a her results of the turtle platter. Another couple of days latter, I finally got around to carving a watermelon fruit platter and shared the results of our turtle on facebook. It was fun but it did take a bit more time than I imagined. If we had a pumpkin carving knife, I am sure the results would of been better , smoother and quicker. But we used what we had on hand and still had a blast making something fun and a new dessert to look forward too after the watermelon was cleaned out by the kids.

Here are a few photos of our version, next one will be better. Can not wait to try this at peak summer when fresh berries from the wild, garden and local markets are ready. But since we don't have fresh berries, frozen berries had to do. Try it out with your family, upcoming social gathering or work presentation. Have fun.

Traditional Foods Week - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Traditional Recipes Series
Part 1

Today’s Key Mi’kmaq Words To Know

Lentukewey = deer meat
Tia’muey = moose meat
Plamu = Salmon
Luskinikn= Bannock
Kiwaskanqatestasikewey = for cents cake

Nalikutkniejk = Antigonish
Googoo = Clan Name = Ku’ku’kwes: night owl
Ma’wiomi = Pow Wow
Mijipjewey = Food

It is Mi’kmaq Heritage Month, I plan to work on five traditional cooking themes which will include recipes consisting of Moose (Tiam), Deer (Lentuk), Salmon(Plamu), eels ( Kato) and bannock (Luskinikn). I am lacking eel recipes though, so if someone out there can help contribute their favorite eel chowder, soup, stew, smoked or broiled eel recipes, etc, it would be appreciated. Any recipe contributions would be for that matter, traditional or contemporary. My cousin Daisy Googoo graduated from Culinary School a couple years ago. Daisy will be cooking up for the Ma’wiomi in Antigonish on October 25, 2007 and she is seeking traditional menus. I said, I would help out but I asked her to share some of her favorite dessert recipes in return. I remembered Daisy said her favorite part of Culinary School was baking pastries and desserts. If this is what she most enjoys, then those are the recipes I would like to her to contribute to the online Mawiomi. I do not have much experience with desserts as she does, my menus mostly consists of main dishes and some soups that I have learned from cooking for friends and family. However, I am interested in discovering new foods and menus all the time. I know that there is more to life than Mr. Noodles, KD ( Kraft Dinner) and the infamous Cape Breton Steak aka Maple Leaf Bologna: menus that are both tastier and more nutritional yet still affordable.

A Mi’kmaq Ma’wiomi is a traditional celebration where people get together, feasts and much more, is often known as a Pow Wow. Our Mi'kmaq Ma’wiomi's (Feast or gatherings) have traditionally consisted of prayers or healing ceremonies, talking circles, storytelling, music, singing and dancing, sharing knowledge, arts, crafts and of course feasts that consists of several great foods (Mijipjewey) and drinks. It is in this same spirit we are hoping to achieve on line, where we share our experiences, knowledge and so on. In this on-line Ma’wiomi, our goal is to bring attention, learn, teach and discover much of the talent, knowledge, facts and history, role models, etc that stems from the Mi’kmaq nation, all of which reflects only the positive side of each contribution and story. Each story and contribution will consists of recipes, food facts or food history that we can fit into a “Cookbook Theme”. It is my hope to someday publish some of these stories and recipes into a “Mi’kmaq Heritage Cookbook” where any funds generated would be used to promote our culture and heritage through projects that are not yet publicly funded such as workshops where we learn to tan moose hides or hire a traditional canoe builder to teach these lessons to those who wish to learn. Maybe we can learn to build a teepee from start to finish or something of this nature and interests. This can happen if we work in unity towards these common interests. We certainly hope you enjoy reading, learning, sharing and regaining our heritage and culture on this journey.

Information on the Ma’wiomi in Antigonish is as follows:

In celebration of MikMaq Heritage Month there is a Mawio'mi to be held October 25, 2007. The day will include:

-- Pow wow from 3:00 -5 :30pm

--Dinner and Entertainment from 5:30 - 7:00pm

--Comedy Show 7:00 - 9:00 with special guest - Glen Gould!!!
..who will be performing two SWEET ACTS!

"21 Ways to Scalp an Indian"

"The Red Man's Kit"

There is no fee for any portion of this event! but a suggested donation is welcome... come out and make this a spectacular time!!

Before I post any recipes, I would like to share with you a song that you would likely hear at a Mi’kmaq Pow Wow.

Time and Place will be:
Thursday, October 25, 2007
3:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m
Mackay Room in the Sub
St.Fx, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

Email:
x2004clu@stfx.ca

Mi’kmaq Gathering Song

Wejkwita’jik nkikma’q wila tet nike’a
Ma’wiomi weskowa’sit, weltasualtultiek, a way.

Wejkwita’jik niskamijk wula tet nike’ a
Nenmitij na telta ‘jik, petaqte’ji’jk
Wtowtiwow.

Wejkwita’jik no’kmaq wula tet nike’a
Pepkwijete’ ma’tijik newtitpa’q
Way ha ya you way.

A way ha, way ha, way ha ya
Way ha way ha ya
Way ha ya yo way.

A way ha, way ha, way ha ya
Way ha way ha ya
Way ha ya you way.

Tiam’muwei – Roast Moose

Ingredients:
Moosemeat
Onion broth
Beef broth or gravy
Onions
Salt
Pepper
Soya Sauce
Garlic

Directions:
Soak moose meat in onion broth overnight. Place roast in a roast pan. Add beef broth or gravy. Cut up small slices of garlic. Include salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with Soya sauce. Place in an oven for 350 degrees for 4 to 5 hours. The last ten minutes, put in some more beef gravy. Serve with vegetables and chow chow

Moose Burgers

21/2 lbs Moose meat (grounded) 1 egg 2 c. Bread crumbs Salt & Pepper Garlic Salt ½ c. Steak Sauce.
Method: Mix all together, make into patties and cook aver low heat- approx.10 min. On each side. Onions are optional. -cooked or raw
from Amelia Jesty

Moose Roast

1-4 lbs. moose roast
3-4 strips bacon
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. dry mustard
4 tbsp. brown sugar
2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 tbsp. chopped onions
3 tbsp. flour
1 cup cranberry juice
1 cup milk
Remove fat from moose and wipe well with clean cloth.
Lard the roast as follows - cut bacon into 2" strips, pierce the roast with a sharp knife at 2 " interval and insert bacon into holes - place roast into glass or earthenware bowl .
Mix the following ingredients and pour over roast.
Cover and marinate roast for 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator.
Turn roast often if marinate does not cover completely.
Marinate - salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mustard, brown sugar, water and vinegar -remove roast from marinate and place in covered roaster at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour
Add onion flakes, cranberry juice and continue cooking roast until tender, approximately 1 more hour
When cooked, remove from pan to hot platter.
Add flour to pan dripping and cook for 5 minutes
Add milk, stirring constantly until gravy is desired thickness.

Moose Sukiyaki

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil 30 ml
1 1/2 lb. boneless moose sirloin 750 g
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c soy sauce
3 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. chicken broth
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
3/4 c thinly sliced celery
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1- 8 fl oz. (227ml) tin sliced bamboo shoots, drained
3/4 c. sliced green onions
1 Tbsp. freshly grated ginger root
1 Tbsp. cornstarch, mixed with 2 Tbsp/30 ml chicken broth or water
Heat oil in a large heavy skillet until very hot.
Slice meat diagonally into strips, brown in batches in the hot oil. Blend together garlic, soy sauce, sugar and chicken broth; add half to meat in skillet, reduce heat to medium. Add onion, green bell pepper, celery and mushrooms, cover; reduce heat again and simmer 10 minutes.
Add remaining soy mixture to pan, together ,with the bamboo shoot slices. simmer uncovered , 4-5 minutes.. Add green onion, simmer 1 minute. Add grated ginger and cornstarch mixture. Stir and cook until sauce thickens slightly

Moose Roast with Cranberry Gravy
4 lb Moose Roast
3 Strips salt pork or thick sliced bacon
1 ts Salt
1/4 ts Black pepper
1/2 ts Ground cinnamon
1/4 ts Ground cloves
1 ts Dry mustard
4 tb Brown sugar
2 1/2 c Water
1/2 c White wine vinegar
2 tb Onion flakes
3 tb Flour
1 c Cranberry juice
1 c Milk

Remove all fat from the moose roast and wipe well with a clean damp cloth. Lard the roast as follows: Cut salt pork or bacon into 1/4 inch strips and chill thoroughly. Pierce the moose roast with a sharp knife or skewer at 2-inch intervals and insert the chilled strips of salt pork or bacon. Place the roast in a glass, earthenware or porcelain bowl. Mix the salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mustard and brown sugar with the water and vinegar and pour over the moose ( 3 cups of sweet pickle juice may be used in place of the brown sugar, water and vinegar if desired. ) Marinate the roast for 24 to 48 hours, turning it over frequently if the liquid does not completely cover it.
Remove the roast from the marinade and place it in a covered roaster in a 350 degree oven for approximately one hour. Add onion flakes and cranberry juice and continue roasting until tender. ( about one hour ). Transfer meat to a hot platter. Add flour to the pan drippings and stir until the flour has absorbed the fat. Add the milk, stirring constantly, until gravy is desired thickness. Serve hot with the roast. Serves 6-8.

Moose Stroganoff
1 1/2 lb Moose sirloin steak (cut in 1/2" strips)
1/2 c Plus 2 tbsp. flour
1 ts Salt
1/2 lb Mushrooms, chopped
2 sm Onions, chopped
1 Clove garlic
3 tb Fat
1 tb Worcestershire
1 c Canned beef bouillon
1 c Sour cream
Steamed rice

Roll meat in 1/4 cup flour and salt. Saute garlic, onions and mushrooms in fat for 5 minutes. Add meat and brown. Remove meat, mushrooms and onions from pan. Add remaining flour to drippings in pan. Add Worcestershire and bouillon. Cook until thickened. Add sour cream. Heat until gravy simmers. Add cooked moose and vegetables and heat. Serve over rice.

Moose Steak with Musuroom Sauce
1 lg Moose Steak
3 tb Bacon Drippings
1/2 c Bouillon Or Consomme
1 md Onion, Chopped
1/2 ts Garlic Powder
3 tb Tomato Paste
1/2 c Water Or Sherry
1 c Sliced Fresh Mushrooms
2 tb Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 c Cream
ds Of Paprika

Heat the bacon drippings in a large skillet and brow the steak on both sides, thoroughly. Add the broth, onion, garlic, and tomato paste diluted in the water or sherry. Cover the pan and simmer for 1 hour or until the meat is tender. Remove the steak from the pan and keep hot. Add the mushrooms to the pan liquid; cover and simmer for 1 minute. Thicken with flour and water mixture. Dilute with the cream. Heat thoroughly. Taste for seasoning and pour over the steak. Sprinkle with the paprika.

Fall Apart Moose
2 Onions; medium
1 lb sweet carrots
4 lb Moose rump roast
2 Cloves garlic
2 c Water
1 pk Onion soup mix
Salt
Pepper
2 tb Cornstarch
2 Beef bouillon cubes

Use a large slow cooker on high temperature setting. Dice onions and carrots and put in slow cooker. Add moose roast. Slice garlic in small pieces. Add water, garlic and onion soup. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook for 4 hours.
Drain juice from meat into saucepan. Add bouillon cubes. Bring juice to boil. Add cornstarch and stir until juice turns thick and clear.
Pour gravy (juice) back into the slow cooker with the moose and carrots/onions. Cook for another hour.
When done, slice moose in thin slices. Place in center of serving platter, garnish with carrots and onions. Pour a small amount of gravy over moose and serve. Mashed potatoes, rice or baked potatoes are fantastic with the remaining gravy.

Moose Pie
1 1/2 lb Moose steak, cubed
1/3 - 1/2 c. flour
1 md Onion, chopped
1 Clove minced garlic
3 tb Oil
2 c Water
2 tb Worcestershire sauce
1 ts Marjoram
1 ts Thyme
1 ts Celery seed
1 ts Salt
1/2 ts Pepper
1 Bay leaf
Diced potatoes & carrots
Frozen peas or green beans
Pie crust

Shake cubed steak in plastic bag with flour, a few cubes at a time. Brown moose and onions and garlic in heated oil, until Moose is brown. Add water, herbs, Worcestershire sauce, salt and peppers. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 1 1/2 hours. Add potatoes and carrots, cook approximately 30 to 45 minutes longer. Add peas. Pour into pie pan. Cover with pie crust, flute edge, cut slits in top. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is nicely browned.

Venison Stroganoff

2 lb. venison steak
2 tbsp. butter
1 package onion soup mix
4 cups water
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
dash of pepper
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup corn starch

Cut up venison steak into 1 inch cubes. Brown the cubes in 2 tbsp of butter. Stir in 1 package of onion soup mix. Add 4 cups of water to 2 tbsp. chopped parsley, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder, dash of pepper, 1/2 tsp.oregano. Bring to a boil. Turn heat very low and cook gently about 1 1/2 hours. When meat is tender add 1/2 cup sour cream dairy type. Do this by first a little hot sauce from the meat. Put all meat back into the mixture and blend 1/4 cup corn starch into a little water and stir into meat mixture. Cook until sauce thickens. Serve over cooked noodles or rice and along with salad and a vegetable.

By Eunice Stick (Stockbridge-Munsee Community Bowler, WI)

Story
Our Family has just another culinary delight from the wild. The credit goes to "Outdoor Life Magazine"
It was a last ditch-desperate attempt to find out what to do with a freezer full of venison that I picked up the Nov. 1969 issue of your magazine and read in it an article by Edna Wagner-Piersole Titled "Venison Fit for a King" and this recipe I met with instant success and now it is one of our favorites-you should try what "Venison fit for a King" tastes like.

Hot Taco Dip

1 lb. of hamburger, venison, turkey etc.....ground up
1 packet of taco seasoning, hot, mild
1 can refried beans small can
1 jar of picante sauce or salsa
1 bag of taco cheese
1 bag of tostada chips for dipping

Brown hamburger in frying pan. Add taco seasoning as directed on the package. When done add picante or salsa to hamburger mixture. Stir and let simmer for 15 min. In a 13x9 inch pan or glass dish spread the can of refried beans on the bottom of the pan. After the hamburger mixture is done simmering spread over the top of the refried beans in pan. Sprinkle on the cheese and put in a 200 degree oven until cheese is melted. Dip with chips.
By Cindy Jungenberg (Stockbridge-Munsee Community Bowler, WI)

Story
I received this recipe from a fellow. The dip was an appetizer to the homemade chicken soup he also made. We came from out of town and stayed with our fellow friend that put us up for the night while we were in town. We arrived around dinner time and the fellow had prepared an appetizer and dinner. We started on the appetizer and enjoyed it so much we forgot about the chicken soup. I told the fellow that that dip he made was excellent and asked for the recipe. He gave me the recipe and it has been a favorite for any family get together. I have had to make the dip on a very short notice one time and only had venison in the house. The dip being so good nobody new it was venison instead of hamburger.

Thanks, Cindy

Cindy Jungenberg
Librarian Specialist
Stockbridge-Munsee Library/Museum
N8510 Moh He Con Nuck Road
Bowler, WI 54416
715-793-4834
Fax 715-793-4836
cindy.jungenberg@mohican-nsn.gov.

Objiway Moose Steaks

1 kg (2 lb) moose steak
Salt and black pepper to taste
250 ml (1 cup) bread crumbs
1 cn 12 oz (375 ml) pasta sauce
250 ml (1 cup) grated mozzarella cheese
Season steaks with salt and pepper. Coat streaks with bread crumbs and bake at 350 F (180 C) for 10 minutes, turning once. Add pasta sauce and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Add mozzarella cheese and cook until cheese in melted. 4 servings.

Deer meat stew

1 1/2 lbs deer meat, 2 tbsp. fat, ½ cup onions, 4 medium potatoes (cubed), 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 4 carrots

Method: Brown deer meat in hot fat, season with salt & pepper, Add 11/2 c. Water, simmer for about 15 min. Add onion, carrots and potatoes. Simmer for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
Turnip may be added.

from Amelia Jesty

Rack of Venison With Forest Mushrooms
Prepared by chef Hessni Malla of La Tour d'Argent Restaurant.
1 quart beef stock
½ cup chopped leeks
¼ cup each, chopped: shallots and carrot
1 tomato, chopped
½ bunch fresh parsley (leaves only)
½ cup port wine
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 rack of venison (8 ribs, about 2 pounds)
¼ cup olive oil
2 cups sliced mixed exotic mushrooms (such as oyster, shiitake, portobello)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste (optional)
Chopped parsley or watercress for garnish (optional)

In a very large saucepan, combine stock, leeks, shallots, carrot, tomato and parsley; whisk in port and tomato paste. Bring to a slow boil, reduce heat and simmer 2 hours, or until sauce is reduced to 3 cups. Strain and discard solids. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place venison on a rack in a roasting pan and roast 25 minutes, just to medium rare. Remove venison from oven and set aside. (To add an optional crust on the top, brush 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard over roasted venison. Pat on about ½ to ¾ cup dry seasoned bread crumbs. Return venison to oven until bread crumbs are browned.)
Meanwhile, heat oil in skillet and add mushrooms; sauté briefly, then season with salt and pepper. Pour about ¼ cup sauce on each of 8 plates. Place 2 slices venison on each plate, atop sauce. Garnish with mushrooms and chopped parsley. Makes 8 servings.

Medallions of Venison With Chili-Pepper Sauce
From Rotisserie for Beef & Bird, this recipe appears in Houston Is Cooking the Best by Ann Criswell (Houston Gourmet, $19.95).
12 (2-ounce) venison medallions, from the back strap if possible
4 egg whites, whipped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup each: vegetable oil and soft butter (1 stick)
Chili-Pepper Sauce (recipe follows)
Pound venison medallions with a mallet; place in a ceramic or stainless steel dish. In a small bowl, combine egg whites, soy sauce, honey, garlic and cornstarch. Spoon mixture over venison, coating all pieces well, then refrigerate, covered, 24 hours.
Remove venison from marinade. Heat oil in medium-size skillet; add venison and sauté over high heat on both sides until nicely brown. Do not overcook; meat should be pink in the center. Add butter to give venison a delicious nutty taste. Lift venison out of butter, then place on a heated platter; set aside. Keep the skillet, with butter and pan drippings, on the stove to make the Chili-Pepper Sauce.
When sauce is made, place 3 venison medallions on each of 4 plates and ladle Chili-Pepper Sauce over top. Serve with wild rice or risotto and winter vegetables. Makes 4 servings.
Note: To reduce sodium, calories and fat, use low-sodium soy sauce and eliminate oil by sautéing venison in a nonstick skillet using vegetable oil spray. Reduce amount of butter to ¼ cup. Use salt-free, defatted beef stock and substitute half-and-half for whipping cream in the sauce.

Venison Stroganoff
1 kg (2 lbs) deer, moose or elk steak
15 ml (1 tbsp) margarine or vegetable oil
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1 L (4 cups) water
30 ml (2 tbsp) parsley, chopped
2.5 ml (½ tsp) garlic powder
dash pepper
0.5 ml (¼ tsp) oregano
60 ml (¼ cup) cornstarch
125 ml (½ cup) light sour cream or plain yogurt

Directions:
1. Cut meat into 2½ cm (1 inch) cubes. In a large saucepan, brown meat in oil or margarine.
2. Stir in onion soup mix and add water, parsley, garlic powder, pepper and oregano. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low. Cook gently for about 1½ hours or until meat is tender.
3. Mix cornstarch with a small amount of cold water (about 30 ml or 2 tbsp) and then add to meat mixture. Stir and cook until sauce thickens.
4. Add sour cream or yogurt and heat until hot but not boiling.
5. Serve over noodles or brown rice if desired.
http://www.diabetes.ca/aboriginal/recipe_venison_stroganoff.asp
Source: Canadian Diabetes Association – Aboriginal recipes section

Kiowa Venison Roast

Slab of venison, about 2" thick
4 ts Bacon fat
1/4 ts Pepper
1 tb Celery, chopped
1/2 c Flour
1/2 ts Salt
1 tb Onion, chopped
2 c Water, boiling

Lay venison on board and pound flour into it. Melt fat in a large frying pan, and brown roast in it. Add all the seasoning and 1/2 of the water. Cover and let simmer for 55 minutes. Pour in rest of water and simmer until done.

Deer Chili
1 lb. ground deer meat
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 pt. tomato juice
1 can tomato sauce
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can pinto or kidney beans
1 pkg. chili mix

Brown meat, onion and garlic in skillet. Put in slow cooker along with all other ingredients. Cook on low setting for 6 to 10 hours or overnight. I double this and freeze. Use in winter for a quick
Baked Deer Meat
Cube deer meat; about 2-3 steaks worth
1 Beef bouillon cube; dissolved in:
3/4 c Water
2 ts Worcestershire sauce
1 tb Soya sauce
1 pn Salt and pepper
Chopped onion; (if desired)

Combine all the above in a casserole dish and bake at 325F for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Or combine in a slow cooker and let cook on low for 6-8 hours. Use the broth to make gravy if you like. The meat is tender and not at all gamey this way.

Candied Chops
6 md Venison chops/steaks/pork chops
Salt and pepper -- to taste
1 1/2 c Brown sugar
1 Lemon -- sliced
3 c Ketchup
2 tb Corn oil
1/2 c Water

Salt and pepper each steak/chop to taste. Brown steak/chops in large fry pan for 5 minutes each side. Remove venison and drain juice. Cover each piece of meat with toppings as follows: Completely cover each piece with ketchup. Sprinkle each piece with brown sugar in the center of the steak or chop. Add water to pan; cover and simmer on low heat for 1 hour. Remove from pan and serve with toppings intact.

Brush Country Deer Loaf
2 1/2 lb Ground venison
1 md White onion
1 md Bell pepper
2 Eggs
1 c Bread crumbs
1 cl Garlic
3 tb Chili powder
Salt and pepper
1 10oz can tomato sauce
3 sl Bacon

Mix first 8 ingredients--put in greased pyrex dish. Place bacon strips on topp of loaf. Pour tomato sauce over all. Bake in moderate oven 1 1/2 hours or until done.

Deer in Beer
2 pound chunk of deer meat
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 cans beer (your favorite) I Noticed import beer like Heineken makes a big difference
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses
Place meat in a large bowl and pour beer over it. Cover and marinate in refrigerator overnight.
Next, remove venison and pat dry, then pour beer, sugar and molasses in sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring it until sugar dissolves.
Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper and place in a large heavy skillet, then pour the beer mixture over it. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, or until tender.

Easy Oven Venison Stew
2 lb Venison stew meat
1 ts Pepper
1 lg Onion, chopped
1 tb Sugar
6 Stalks celery, chopped
3 tb Quck cooking tapioca
6 Carrots, sliced
1 1/2 c Tomato juice
3 md Potatoes, diced
1 Parsley flakes
1 ts Seasoned salt

Mix raw meat and raw vegetables together and place into a 13X9-inch baking pan. Blend seasoned salt, pepper, sugar and tapioca into the tomato juice and pour over the meat/vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with parsley flakes. Cover tightly with tin foil and bake at 250F for 4 hours.

Deer Steak
1 lb. deer steak (approximately 1/2-inch thick)
1 c. flour with salt and pepper
shortening
1 can mushroom soup
water

Cut deer steak in approximately 3-inch squares. Roll in flour, salt and pepper to taste. Fry in hot shortening until brown, turning once. Place pieces of steak in slow cooker. Mix soup with 1 can water and flour left after coating steak. Mix enough water to flour to make it smooth. Then pour over steak in slow cooker. Make sure it covers steak. Cook on low heat for 6 to 8 hours. (Can test for doneness. ) When done, turn on high and thicken with cornstarch as you like. Note: Use with rice, noodles or mashed potatoes.

Easy Slow Cooker Venison Roast
1 small to med. venison roast
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 envelope Lipton onion soup mix
1 large onion -- sliced
Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Garlic salt
Season All

Cut venison into serving size piece while meat is raw. Place cleaned and washed meat in slow cooker, sprinkle very generously with Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Season All and garlic salt. Add mushroom soup and onion soup mix. Stir together and place onion rings on top. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Garlic Steak Stir-Fry
2 lb Round steak/venison
1/4 c Light soy sauce
1 c Beef bouillon
1/4 ts Ginger
2 Clove mashed garlic
1/4 c Cooking sherry
4 tb Peanut oil
2 Clove chopped garlic
1 1/2 c Boiling water
3 lg Green peppers cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 c Sliced water chestnuts
3 tb Cornstarch
Sherry or sesame oil
Hot boiled rice

Cut meat against the grain into 1/2 inch strips (this is easier to do if meat is partially frozen). Make a marinade for the meat by combining soy sauce, bouillon ginger, mashed garlic and sherry. Marinate steak for 2-12 hours in the refrigerator. Dry meat on paper towels. In a wok, heat peanut oil and saute chopped garlic until it turns golden brown. Remove, leaving at least 2 tablespoon oil in wok. Add meat to oil and saute until brown (add just a dash of sherry/sesame oil to meat while it's browning). Add reserved marinade and 1 cup boiling water. Simmer 45 minutes or less time, if desired. When meat is tender, remove and keep in warm oven. Pour marinade in separate pan and add cornstarch. Add remaining 1/2 cup boiling water, if needed. Simmer until thick. Stir-fry green pepper and water chestnuts in liquid remaining in wok. Add meat and marinade gravy. Add dash sesame oil to taste. Serve over boiled rice.

Hungry Man’s Stew with Venison
3 lb Venison
2 Onions, chopped
3 tb Worchestershire sauce
2 lb Potatoes
1 cn Green beans
1 cn Wax beans
1 cn Corn
1 lb Carrots, sliced
2 qt Water
2 ts Seasoned salt
1 ts Pepper
2 ts Oregano
2 ts Garlic powder
4 tb Cornstarch

Cut venison into chunks. In a large stew pot, lightly brown venison with chopped onions and Worchestershire Sauce. Cut potatoes into cubes. Add potatoes, green beans, wax beans, corn, carrots, water, seasoned salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic powder. Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down to simmer. Stir often. Simmer 2 1/2 to 3 hours. For last 1/2 hour, take some juice from the stew pot, and add cornstarch. Stir until dissolved. Add back into mixture.

Potato Carrot Venison Stew
2 lb Venison, cubed
1 Bay leaf
1/4 c Flour
3 c Water
1 ts Salt
2 c Fresh mushrooms
1/4 ts Pepper
4 Potatoes, quartered
3 tb Oil
4 Carrots, cut up
2 ts Beef bouillon
2 tb Flour
2 Onions, cut up
1 1/4 c Water
1 Stalk celery, diced

In large bowl, coat meat with flour, salt and pepper. In large pot, brown meat in oil. Add bouillon, onions, celery, bay leaf and 3 cups water. Simmer covered for 1 1/2 hours, or until venison is tender. Remove bay leaf. Add mushrooms, potatoes and carrots. Cover and continue cooking until vegetables are tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. Combine 2 tablespoons flour and 1/4 cup water. Stir into stew juices. Heat until thick. Stir constantly.

Smoked Deer Ham
1 Deer ham, 8-10 lb
3 tb Red pepper
1/2 c Salt
1/4 c Vinegar
4 tb Pepper, black

Wash ham carefully and trim away fat or cartilage. Make small slits in meat with sharpe knife about 2 in. apart and 1 in. deep, all over the roast. Make a paste of the ingredients and stuff each cut slit with a small teaspoon of seasoning paste. Rub remaining seasoning over outside of roast. Seal tight in a container and refrigerate for 24 - 48 hours, turning over 2 or 3 times. When ready to cook, place on spit over coals and smoke approximately 4 - 5 hours. When done, wrap in foil and keep very warm till serving.

Venison and four beans
2 lb Venison
1 lb Bacon
1 can Pork and beans
1 can Lima beans
1 can Kidney beans
1 can Navy beans
1/2 Onion, cut up
1 Green pepper, cut up
1 c Mustard
1 c Catsup
1 ts Brown sugar
1 ts Salt
1 ts Pepper

Brown venison and bacon. Put all ingredients in slow cooker and crook for 4 hours on high temperature setting.

Seared Salmon Satisfaction – Submitted by Elliot Youden – Lark Harbour, Newfoundland
4 fresh salmon filets
Pre-cooked whole corn kernels
Blueberries
Barley
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the filets by sprinkling with barley, salt and pepper. Roast the salmon filets on a regular baking sheet for 5-7 minutes and then cover with corn and blueberries. Bake for an additional 5 minutes to achieve desired texture of the salmon. Serve immediately. Tart or sweet blueberries will add flavors sure to entice any palate

Stuffed Atlantic Salmon
Submitted by: Eva Nicholas − Head of the Waters
One Atlantic salmon
One Package of Shake N Bake for fish or chicken
Ready to bake stuffing
Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper to taste
One Turkey Bag or Aluminum Foil, Optional, Can cook without these but slower.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

This is an absolutely delicious way to enjoy salmon for the entire family. It's very
easy to bake and it taste sensational. It has since become one of my husbands
family favorites passed down from my parents. The only change I have made is
Cooking the salmon in a turkey bag, I find it retains the flavor of the salmon better
and the foil has a tendency to get stuck to the bottom of the salmon.

First Prepare the stuffing as instructed on the stuffing of your choice. I use
Uncle Ben's turkey stuffing; it only takes about 5 minutes.
Take a whole salmon, remove the head and tail. Slice the belly side of the
salmon open from one end to another, In other words from the head to tail.
Rinse the fish in cold water. Sprinkle a dash of salt and pepper inside the fish
and some lemon on top and inside the belly of the fish.
Now stuff the salmon's belly with the turkey stuffing. I usually end up using
the entire box for a small− medium size salmon two boxes if you have a
bigger salmon. Now Sprinkle the Shake N Bake on top of the salmon,
turnover and sprinkle generously on both sides. Tie the salmon into a turkey
bag or wrap with foil and let cook for approximately 40−70 minutes,
depending on size of the salmon. Now just wait and enjoy.

Rabbit Stew
Submitted by: Melissa Labrador−Posey – Wildcat First Nation
Rabbit stew has been a favorite in our family for generations. It's very easy
to make and cooked similar to beef stew.
1 Rabbit
salt water
Or soda water
small amount of fat
chopped onion
onion mix
veggies of choice; carrots, turnip, potatoes and so on

After preperation of the rabbit, some people soak the rabbit in salt water over
night. Others prefer to boil the rabbit off in a little soda water for about 30
minutes. This helps tenderize the meat.
After tenderizing the rabbit and rinsing it off, put a small amount of fat in the
pot along with chopped onion. Brown the rabbit on both sides in the fat and
onion mix.
Once the rabbit is browned add water and then veggies of choice; carrots,
turnip, potatoes and so on. Cook through until veggies are done.
Let me add a tip from Dr. Granny. She says combine partridge and rabbit for
a wonderful tasting stew.
Servings: 4−6

Rabbit Stew

1 Whole Rabbit (cut up) 4 carrots pieces of salt pork 1 small turnip 1 lg. Onion 6 potatoes (cubed)

Method: Skin rabbit ,wash and clean . Skillet- fry pork and onion add to rabbit boil ½ hr.Add turnip & carrots & potatoes boil until vegetable are done. May add dumplings.
from Amelia Jesty

Mi’kmaq Fried Rabbit
1 Rabbit skinned and washed
1 c Flour
1 ts Salt
Pepper to taste
Cooking oil
1 Onion, diced
Juice of 1/4 lemon

Cut rabbit up in pieces desired. Roll pieces in mixture of flour, salt, and pepper. Brown rabbit in 4 T. cooking oil. Add diced onions and lemon juice. Cover and cook until done.

Native American Rabbit Delight
1 Young rabbit
1 tb Fat,
1 c Broth or water with chicken bouillon cube
1/4 c Lemon juice
3/4 c Orange juice
1/2 c Mushrooms, chopped,
1 tb Parsley, chopped,
1 pn Ginger
1/2 ts Salt
1/4 ts Pepper
2 Green peppers, chopped.

Cut up the rabbit and brown pieces in fat in a heavy pot. Add broth and other ingredients, season with salt, pepper and ginger. Cover and cook slowly until tender.

Garlic Rabbit
1 Rabbit
1 tb Flour
Salt and pepper
1 lg Head of garlic
5 tb Oil
1 lg Glass sherry or white wine

Marinade rabbit pieces ( not chicken ) overnight in 2 tbs white wine vinegar. 'Roll in seasoned flour. chop garlic fine .Brown rabbit in oil until meat takes on color . Add wine and let cook until most of liquid evaporates. Cover and let simmer 30 to 40 minutes or tender and most of liquid is gone.Serve with garlic scented oil, fresh tomato slices.

Cook Out Rabbit
1 Rabbit Fryer; quartered
1 1/2 ts Salt
1/4 ts Pepper
1 1/2 ts Season salt
1/2 c Vegetable oil
1/4 c Sauterne Wine

Season rabbit with salt & pepper. Mix oil, wine and season salt. Broil rabbit, basting often with sauce until browned and tender.

Pan Stewed Rabbit
1 Rabbit, ready for the pan
1 Salt
1/2 c Olive oil
1 c Vinegar, wine
1 Flour
2 tb Butter
3 Olives, chopped
1 Garlic clove, mashed
2 c Consomme
1/4 ts Salt
1/4 ts Pepper
1 tb Bacon, raw, diced
2 c Wine, red

Cut rabbit into serving pieces; place in bowl overnight with 1 Tbsp salt, olive oil, and wine vinegar. Remove and dip in flour. Brown on all sides in butter, then add chopped olives, mashed garlic cloves and brown again. Add 2 C consomme, salt, pepper, raw bacon and red wine. Place in covered casserole dish and bake at 350 for about 2 hours.

Rabbit Pie

Skin and clean the rabbit. Let soak about 1 hour in salted water. Remove, cut into serving pieces and boil. Add 1 sliced onion and when cooked remove the meat from bones, reserving the broth. Add soda crackers to the broth, enough to absorb and thicken broth. Add meat pieces, season to taste and place in a greased baking pan. (many older cooks prefer an enameled baking pan.) Cover with rich biscuit dough and make several slits in dough for steam to escape. Bake in a moderate oven, 350 degrees F, until biscuit dough is baked and brown.

Rabbit Pot Pie
1 lg Rabbit
1 lg Onion, chopped
2 Stalks celery, choppe
1 Garlic clove, minced
3 Carrots, chopped
3 Potatoes, cubed
2 Chicken bouillon cubes
1 pk Frozen vegetables
1 pk Chicken gravy mix
4 9 inch prepared pie crusts

Boil rabbit in one-quart salted water until done. Cool, cube meat and return to broth. Add onion, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes, and bouillon. Boil for 15 minutes or until done. Add frozen vegetables and gravy mix (stirried into 1/2 cup water) and return to boil. Cool mixture and pour into prebaked pie shell. Cover with second pie shell. Crimp sides, slit top and bake on cookie sheet until top crust is done. Makes 2 pies.

Roast Rabbit
Dress rabbit. Wash carefully in water to which 1/2 teaspoon baking soda has been added to each quart. Let stand in salted water overnight. Stuff with onion, celery, or chestnut dressing. Sew. Rub rabbit with salt and pepper. Place in baking dish with 1 onion, a few whole cloves, 1 bay leaf, 1 diced carrot, and a few peppercorns. Dot with cooking fat. Sift a little flour over top. Pour 1 cup of stock or water into pan. Cover tightly. Roast in moderate oven (400 F) until tender. Baste frequently. Serve with slices of lemon, and cranberry or currant jelly.

Eel Chowder

3 med Eels 1 Onion 4 potatoes
Method: cut skinned eels into 1 inch pieces Dice potatoes and onions. Boil eels for 10 min. Add potatoes and onions. Boil until cooked.
from Amelia Jesty

Skinless Eels
Eel/s
Salt and Pepper to taste
A bit of oil
A bit of flour
To skin the tough skin off the eel, cut around the head with a sharp knife.
Use pliers, grip skin that goes up to a point at the back of the head. Pull
down strongly, stripping off skin and leaving smooth, clean, white fish.
Remove head with knife.
Cut eels in serving size pieces, sprinkle a bit of salt and put into saucepan to
parboil for 20 minutes. Remove from saucepan, and roll into flour, salt and
pepper mixture. Fry in preheated pan with oil until golden brown. Ready to
serve immediately for your enjoyment.

Let's make Chow with Mulch Paul

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:25:00 +0000

Kwe,

Okay, As promised I would have my aunt's Chow Chow recipe online tonight. So let's get going.

Geraldine Paul is more well known as Mulch, she is my aunt from We'koqmaq First Nation, aka Whycocomagh, Waycobah, but no matter what you call our rez, its supposedly translates to the "Head of the Waters" of Oonamaki, the Land of the Mist and Fog, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We live at the most beautiful place on earth, don't believe me, just come and visit, and explore scenic locations such as our homelands, the Cape Breton highlands, only an hour away are absolutely breath taking and of course our shorelines are stunning, the brad or lakes are a gem and who doesn't love the ocean? Anyone up to some whale watching or eagles soaring, or maybe witness a moose on the loose?

How about some Chow Chow preserves? That's on our agenda tonight. Earlier today I got a call from my aunt who told me she was in the process of making homemade preserves, Chow Chow and Cucumber relish so I went on over to her house with my camera in hand. I took photos step by step of what I thought would be an intimidating process. To my surprise my aunt made it look simply simple and relaxing. Nothing intimidating about it as a matter of fact.

Waste Not Want Not. Mulch had an extra supply of red tomatoes and she did not want them go to any waste so she added them to her Chow. So now we have a beautiful array of red and green tomatoes. My aunt mixed 16 cups of tomatoes for this recipe and cut up 5 Large Onions or in this case we substituted 10 smaller onions and mixed with a 1/4 cup of salt. Let sit overnight. Okay, that was the hardest part of the recipe. Unless you have food processor than this can prove to be the most daunting task.

My aunt says, this is a good time to shoot the breeze, a good ladies night. She and Annie K did this the night before and she tells me stories of when she used to preserve as a young girl. Preserving was much more common back then, In fact it used to be her homework assignment when she used to be a student of Mabou School. Students competed in homemade preserving in order to gain extra points she recalls. She would test every jar and students were tested on taste and how well the jelly was set. Lucky teacher.

Next Morning: There should be a lot of excess liquid now, so drain the Chow. Mulch squeezes the broth out of the Chow one hand full at a time. This did not too long, she put the drained chow into the pot she will be heating in only moments. Continue this until the Chow is completely drained. Then you add some Sugar, Dry Mustard, regular Vinegar. Mix well with your hands for about a minute. Mulch took two tablespoons of pickling spice and tied it tightly into some cheesecloth, you can see a picture of the bag in the banner below. Place this bag in the center of the Chow Mix.Now set on the stove at medium heat for about forty minutes. Mix occasionally and check that the pickling spice bag is still tied well and does not loosen up or break open.

As the Chow heats up, Mulch starts to prepare her table and places her Pre-sterilized Jars and Covers neatly on a clean towel.
Every once in a while Mulch would slowly stir the chow while it was slowly steaming on the stovetop. She would carefully inspect if any of the tomatoes for too large for her preference and would chop them into smaller pieces with her scissors. There were a few larger pieces. Once the pot has been heated for about forty minutes. Take the Chow off the burner and let cool for about 20 more minutes.

Then you scoop the Chow into the jars until the there is no more Chow left. Place lids and covers on the jars and close as tightly as you can. You should here a popping sound on the covers withinin a few more minutes indicating the jars are properly closed. Now you let sit in a dark, dry place for at least two days to get the most favorable Chow, this is when its best. Jarred Chow will stay fresh for at least a year. Last year, Mulch jarred 56 cans of Chow for us, this lasted us the entire year and it was all very good and fresh from week 1 to 52. And this is how it was done. Now I'm going to attempt to do this myself . I know it's not so intimidating as I first thought, I feel much more comfortable with the whole process now that we went through this step by step.

Mulch laughs at how easy preserving homemade preserves are these days. When she was a young girl, she can remember making preserves with her family and kiju, the Late Mary Helen Googoo. They had a big pot over an open fire, outdoors and cooked this way. Now a days we have electric stoves, so easy. We have dishwashers that can be used to sterilize the jars. Canning jellies, cucumber relish, Chow and other foods are an annual tradition for her and her sister Annie K. Thank you ladies for contributing to the On-line Mawiomi, Our Mi'kmaq gathering place to share stories, recipes and more.

About Mulch Paul:

Geraldine Paul, those who know her call her Mulch is a woman of many skills and known to be a go getter in our community. It was only a few years ago that Mulch was disabled and confined to a wheelchair. But this fact, did not deter her, she underwent surgery, regained her strength and recovered well. She healed with her will and determination. Today she is seen walking, working and traveling all over the place. She works hard all week and usually takes the weekend to relax with friends and family. Mulch is an active woman who is always working or volunteering all over the community. We all know obtaining a job on a reserve can be challenging but Mulch can get pretty creative in finding ways to earn a living. In the Summer, she wakes early in the morning and starts Barbecueing and making fresh subs,then sells them to all the hard workers, and clients all over the reserve. A lot of people depend on her and appreciate the service she provides to the community. In the winter months, she focuses more on her sewing trade and is often creating quilts that she sells, raffles and sometimes donates for charity. She spends much of her time, teaching young children at the school about Mi'kmaq crafts, games and our culture and traditional lifestyle. Last week, she was making baskets by the river during treaty day celebrations for all the students and on lookers to watch and learn. This weekend she is taking part in another annual tradition with her brothers and sisters. Every thanksgiving is a time where they go camping to the Cape Breton highlands and enjoy traditions such as cooking slowly roasted partridge and Barbecued eels,and who knows, maybe this year they will get that moose on the loose so their families can continue to enjoy the succulent taste of wild traditional foods in their lives.

Lets Review the recipe:
Mary Johnson's Chow

Ingredients:
16 cups green tomatoes
8 cups onions
1/4 cup course salt
4 cups of sugar, she used half brown sugar and half white sugar
2 tablespoons pickling spice in a bag. For marinating flavor into the chow.
1 teaspoon dry mustard
3 cups of white vinegar

Directions:

Put sliced up tomotoes, onions and salt in a large pan and let stand over night. In the morning drain out the juice. Return the mixture to the pot, add sugar, dry mustard, vinegar and mix well. Add the bag of pickling spice and heat for about 40 minutes to an hour. Let cool for a bit. Bottle while still hot. Place in a dark, dry place.

Update: Geraldine (Mulch) Pauls Chow

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:15:00 +0000

Just to give you a bit of an update, today my aunt Mulch made some homemade preserves. First she made some cucumber relish and the other was Chow Chow. I was there with my camera and snapped up some photos as she worked on the Chow. I am working on a few blog stories now, One is the chronology of the how my aunt made "Mary Johnson's chow" that is the title of her Chow recipe. I'd like to share some of my aunt's stories and I will include more photos. Another is the real thanksgiving story and of course some recipes too. Hopefully I will finish these by the end of the night, so be sure to check back and learn with me. I am also working on a blog that honors basket weavers, and this requires a bit more research at this point but it is a working progress. I also would like to know if there are any stories or recipes you may have or like to share, maybe you want to honor your role model, elder, someone that means a lot to you,or want to recollect old stories, perhaps we can celebrate a loved ones upcoming birthday or anniversary. I would like to hear your opinions and stories. I can be emailed at eva.nicholas@gmail.com . If you prefer to do a telephone interview, leave me your number and I would be more than happy to get back to you. This post is free, I do this as a hobby and I would like see you take this journey with me.

Be Back Later
Eva

Role Model Daniel N Paul contributes Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:30:00 +0000

Batter for Fish and Chips

Submitted by Daniel N. Paul
1 Cup of Flour
1 Cup of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix
1 Teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 Teaspoon of baking powder
1 Egg

This will make enough batter to prepare fish for about six adults. For Larger crowds just double or triple the ingredients.

For a crisper batter mix with water, for smoother use milk, or use a combination. Do not make it too watery.

Preparation for deep frying fish.

Break several eggs into a bowl and beat, dip cut up fresh haddock, or other fresh fish, into the eggs, roll in flour, then dip in fish batter, then place into hot deep fryer. Cook until slightly brown, remove, then do the same with the rest of the fish. Then return the fish to the fryer to golden brown and then serve.

Thank you Dan for this contribution. To learn more about Daniel N. Paul, You can read his Book "We Were Not the Savages" or visit his website www.danielnpaul.com

I would like to also like to thank Dr. Cosmas Ho and for taking the time to respond to my request. To learn more about Dr. Cosmas Ho, you can visit his website www.omega3sealoil.com .

In light of my Treaty day write up, I found the following recipe:

Savory Seal Hearts

1 Large Seal Heart
1 Cup Bread crumbs or cooked rice
1 teaspoon Parsley
1/2 teaspoon Sage
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
2 tablespoons Onion flakes, softened in lukewarm water
Slices of fat bacon
2 Tablespoons Melted Butter

Soak the heart in salted water overnight.

Wash the heart well and trim off the fat, large veins and thread like cords

Cut the heart into think slices.

Grease a casserole well into butter.

Make a stuffing of bread crumbs or cooked rice, parsley, sage, salt, pepper and the onions. Toss lightly.

Place the slices of heart, stuffing and slices of fat bacon in layers, alternately in the greased casserole and top with the melted butter.

Cover tightly and bake in a moderate over for at least 2 hours. Serves 4

My Treaty day Message

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:53:00 +0000

Today is Treaty Day, marking 255 years since the signing of the 1752 treaty by our ancestors ensuring our rights to fish and hunt for generations and generations. Today I want to discuss “Sustainability, Cultural preservation, and respecting our treaty rights when hunting and fishing”. I am a true believer of these rights and that these rights must be protected, I also believe in conservation and sustainability. Sometimes our rights, get clouded and mixed up with political or social issues and one in particular that I think has prevented our tribe from being pursued is the Seal hunt. There may a few reasons why this opportunity has not been addressed was at one time an important and staple contribution to our food supply. Now days I never hear anyone say that they just had a feast of seal, cacamo, seal soup, a stuffed seal heart, etc. In fact, I have only met one Mi’kmaq family that still cooks seal as part of their diet. “The Mi’kmaq locative suffix -akadi,-akwadik shows up in regional place names like Quoddy Harbour, from Mi’kmaq nooda-akwade ‘seal-hunting place.”

I bring up the seal hunt now because I read in the news only five days ago, Prime Minister Stephan Harper defending the hunt when he was being harped by animal rights activists while attending an international conference on environment in New York.

“When asked why Canada permits the hunt, Harper said anti-sealing groups present false information about the practice and that the clubbing of baby seals has been outlawed for over 20 years. He went on to say, "The seal population is exploding in Canada - it's not an endangered species by any means." "There is no reason to discriminate against it any more than any other industry of animal husbandry. We will not be bullied or blackmailed into forcing people out of that industry who depend on the livelihood, based on things that are simply stories and allegations that are simply not true."

In August, 1994, author and historian Daniel N. Paul wrote his stance on the seal hunt in the Halifax Herald. He wrote the following:

“Me thinks the time has come for us to manage the fisheries and the seal population for the good of the majority of our people, rather than trying to do so in response to the demands of special interests groups. This is 1994 not 1497, a time when the Atlantic fisheries seemed inexhaustible and the need to conserve was unheard of. The human population of the world has increased a hundredfold or more since then, and the need for us to responsibly manage and conserve vital food resources has become critical. In this context, the need to feed ourselves takes precedence over the needs of large herds of insatiable predators.

If it wasn't happening, it would be impossible for me to believe that responsible people would stand by in this time of world food shortages and allow the destruction of a valuable and renewable food resource by permitting the unchecked growth of the Grey-Seal herd. This animal is a veritable eating machine with very few natural enemies. To put on its blubber, it needs to consume vast quantities of fish and thus must almost constantly feed. Caused by the federal government's cancellation of the annual seal hunt, in answer to the demands of special-interests groups, its population has increased to the point where it is in the process of becoming the top consumer of fish in the Atlantic region.

Now, in an effort to regain control of the situation, there is talk of trying to reduce the seal population by the use of birth control. Try as I might, knowing the vastness of the North Atlantic, I can't visualize the animals voluntarily gathering in a specific location for the purpose of lining up to participate in birth control efforts. But then I suppose, in the minds of dreamers, anything is possible.

Give us a break! There are tens of thousands of people out of work in the fisheries who are in desperate need of employment. Surely, there must be a way to begin a harvest of these animals that will be both conducive to creating employment for our unemployed while at the same time conserving the animal in acceptable numbers and providing relief for fish stocks.

How about using them as a food source? I have never tasted the flesh of a seal; however, the ancient Micmac did utilize products from the animal for their survival. In the 17th century, Nicholas Denys wrote this about the people's dietary habits:

"There was formerly a much larger number of Indians than at present. They lived without care, and never ate either salt or spice. They drank only good soup, very fat. It was this that made them live long and multiply much.

They often ate fish, especially seals to obtain the oil.... and they ate the whale, which frequently came ashore on the coast, especially the blubber on which they made good cheer. Their greatest liking is for grease; they ate as one does bread, and drink it liquid!"

The before-mentioned indicates that the seal's flesh is potable and that people can acquire a taste for it - the same as they do, in the course of time, for other new products. The flesh of the animal, based upon its fish diet, should be very nutritious. With imagination, many other diverse uses for products from the animal's carcass can be found - pet food, for instance.

Now comes the part that gets many people up in arms, the slaughter of the beast. How to do it in a humane manner is the question. The method we settle upon must be a method that vastly improves upon the way its natural enemy, the shark, does it. The shark in a feeding frenzy virtually eats the beast alive! Given our skills in inventing methods to kill one another, finding a humane method to slaughter the seal, in this age of space exploration and advanced technology, should not be an insurmountable problem.

There is a natural resource waiting here to be developed and harnessed. In this area of high unemployment and lost hope, can we afford to continue to ignore it?

Daniel N. Paul

“In the past, the Mi'kmaq spent most of the year along the sea coast, taking advantage of the wealth of food available there throughout all but about six weeks of the year. Fish of all kinds, including salmon and sturgeon, plus porpoises, whales, walrus, seals, lobster, squid, shellfish, eels and seabirds with their eggs made up the bulk of their diet. They also ate moose, caribou, beaver and porcupine, as well as smaller animals, like squirrels. Berries, roots and edible plants were gathered during the summer. Meat and fish were dried and smoked to preserve them.”

It seems the more we have become displaced from our traditional lifestyle and diet the more prevalent we witness the incidence of diabetes, cancers, heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and the list goes on and on. It seems no matter what disease, sickness we see today, the underlying cause is often related to some lack of certain vitamins, minerals or an excess of another that has contributed to an illness. For example, heart disease is often associated with long term cholesterol problems, sodium aggravates high blood pressure, a sugar imbalance is potentially hazardous for someone with diabetes, and arthritis and many other illnesses can be prevented or minimized early in life with proper nutrition.

I read one day that 90 per cent of society lacks the minimum daily recommended amount of vitamin c and as a result, much of western society suffers from this vitamin deficiency. This form of malnutrition is especially true for impoverished families. I guess this would mean we’re on top of that list. This can have serious consequences to one’s health. I find this so ironic considering a serious lack of this vitamin deficiency is better known as scurvy. Whoa, now I find that ironic and just boggles my mind! How have we reduced our dietary lifestyle from eating the most nutritional, healthiest and delicate foods on earth to becoming so malnourished anyways? So what consequences I wonder can omitting seal from our lifestyle have on our people?

First, I think we should examine how consuming seal was viewed in our culture and examining what nutritional values can one gain from re-entering seal meat, seal oil, etc in today’s diet. I contacted Mi’kmaq author and historian Daniel N. Paul for permission to publish some information this heritage cookbook project from his book titled “We Were Not the Savages” and his website, in the submission he discusses his view of the seal hunt and how seal was viewed in our culture and diet. I feel this contribution is quite significant and of utmost importance. I also wrote to a doctor who works in the seal oil industry and asked him for his opinion on knowledge on possible benefits we can gain by re-introducing seal to our aboriginal diets. I wanted to understand the science why our ancestors celebrated so gleefully with the seal feast. I have even read Mi’kmaq legends when Glooscap took great appreciation for cacamo, this seal soup which seems like a vitamin enriched delicacy provides a feeling of wellness and great health.

Here is a sample from the first page of the 2nd Chapter of Dan Paul's
Book "We Were Not the Savages". I would like to thank Daniel N. Paul for his contribution to
The Mi'kmaq Heritage Cook book project and his valuable insight, work and
contribution to the Mi'kmaq Nation.

Chapter 2

Mi'kmaq Social Values and Economy

The pre-Columbian Mi’kmaq were a nomadic people who moved from place to place in harmony with the seasonal migrations of fish, game and fowl.These provided the principal components of their diets, supplemented by some farming. Their food supply was bountiful, dependable and extremely healthy, and materials needed to construct snug wigwams and make clothing suited to the changing seasons were readily available. They were not wanting.

Because of the communal nature of the society and the abundance of food, poverty among the People was virtually unknown. Material things, other than clothing and household goods, were shared equally. Thus the old, sick, infirm and otherwise disadvantaged were protected from destitution. Endowed with a high level of personal security, the People had a relatively low level of stress in their lives. This, combined with a healthy diet, blessed them with unusually long lifespans; centenarians were not rare. Comparing their comfortable and serene lifestyles with the hardships then being endured by much of the world’s other peoples, one must conclude that the Mi’kmaq were very well off.

Denys, who wrote after the Mi’kmaq population had undergone a substantial decline, describes their dietary habits:

There were formerly a much larger number of Indians than at present. They lived without care, and never ate either salt or spice. They drank only good soup, very fat. It was this that made them live long and multiply much. They often ate fish, especially seals to obtain the oil, as much for greasing themselves as for drinking; and they ate the Whale which frequently came ashore on the coast, especially the blubber on which they made good cheer. Their greatest liking is for grease; they ate as one does bread, and drink it liquid.1

“Cacamo” was their greatest delicacy. In order to make it, the women:

made the rocks red hot… collected all the bones of the Moose, pounded them with rocks upon another larger, reducing them to powder; then they placed them in their kettle and made them boil well. This brought out a grease that rose to the top of the water, and they collected it with a wooden spoon. They kept the bones boiling until they yielded nothing more, and with such success that from the bones of one Moose, without counting the marrow, they obtained five to six pounds of grease as white as snow, and as firm as wax. It was this which they used as their entire provision for living when they went hunting. We call it Moose butter; they Cacamo.2

Now Here is a letter from Dr. Cosmas Ho MD
I would like to thank Dr. Cosmas Ho MD from taking the time to write and address our concerns. For more information on him and his seal oil products, visit his website below or better yet you can read his book, that is listed in his site. I hope you enjoy his article.

In today’s society, our human diet is vastly different from our ancestors, where hunting, fishing and gathering of foods was an important part of their lifestyle. This was the way of life for Traditional Mi’Kmaq Indians, whose daily diet consisted of such delicacies as seal, moose, caribou, fish, and vegetables; dating back to 11,000 years prior to the first European contact in the early 17^th Century. Over the centuries, due to changing lifestyles and need for convenience, our society began to abandon these traditional ways of attaining food. This resulted in a lower consumption of fish and other marine mammals such as the seal. Due to our fast lifestyle and fast food, our diet has dramatically changed for the worse. Consequently, our diet should have a balance of Omega 6 and Omega 3, at a ratio of 1:1; instead it shows a ratio of 20:1. This has resulted in a deficiency of Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA’s), which are important “essential” fatty acids for overall human health and development. Though Omega 3 is present at birth it is not made by the human body, thus requiring us to obtain it from another food source. Seal is relatively high in these long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, according to research done by Hoppner, et al. (J. Am. Diet Assoc., 1978, Sep; 73 (3):257-60).

Due to the high deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids in our diet today, the medical profession has seen an increase in diseases such as, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis (inflammation), crohn’s disease (inflammation), cancer, depression, and even learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Research has shown that 68% of people die from just these conditions that involve fatty degeneration (cardiovascular disease (43.0%), cancer (22.4%), and diabetes (1.8%)). Unfortunately many of these deaths are due to poor eating habits. Overall, scientific studies have shown that this essential fatty acid deficiency is seen as the leading cause of 50 westernized degenerative diseases. A study by Bjarnason revealed that the incidence of breast cancer increased as Greenland and Icelandic women abandoned their traditional diets of marine life (mainly seal, which is very rich in Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids). (Int. J., Cancer, 1974, 13: 689-696) Fortunately, the prevalence of such diseases does not have to be if we take the initiative to drastically change our current lifestyle.

This being said, the information and vast knowledge I have gained from my intensive review and research into the health benefits of the Omega 3 fatty acids, plus clinical observations and patient feedback, has led me to believe that regular daily consumption of the Omega 3 fatty acids from seal oil is far superior to that derived from finfish or any other food source. The Omega 3 PUFA’s in seal oil is nature’s ideal blend of EPA, DHA, and DPA, with the exception of DPA which is high in human breast milk. These essential fatty acids play a vital role in maintaining the integrity and fluidity of the membranes that surrounds human cells, protecting them from free radical damage.

The EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) present in seal oil reduces inflammation and blood clots within the cardiovascular system. Those with diets rich in EPA are less inclined to develop such diseases as rheumatoid arthritis, crohn’s disease, lupus, asthma, multiple sclerosis, and skin disorders. While the DHA (docorahexaenoic acid) is an essential building block of the brain, nerve and eye tissue, it is essential in developing an infant’s visual acuity and motor skills. Research has proven that seal oil is very rich in DHA. With regards to DPA (docorapentaenoic acid), it is only found in significant amounts in seal oil and nursing mother’s breast milk. It is as important as EPA or DHA and is an effective agent in blood vessel walls. Researchers in Japan (2003) found that DPA has a potential inhibitory effect on tumor angiogenesis (new vessel formation). This means that DPA has an anti-cancer effect. The composition of these essential fatty acids in seal oil are ultimately involved in controlling inflammation, cardiovascular health, myelin sheath development, allergic reactivity, immune response, hormone modulation, IQ, and behavior. For example, The International Atherosclerosis Project (1992) showed that the Inuit of the N.W.T. who lived on a traditional diet of marine mammals (mainly seal) had, at the age of seventy, the same coronary artery elasticity as a twenty year old European.

We are all natural biological organisms; therefore we must not only attain, but maintain and regain good health through natural approaches, diet and lifestyles in keeping with the biology that “nature” genetically built into us. I have always maintained that diet is one of the primary factors to achieving and staying healthy. Through my years of intensive research and study, I firmly believe that seal oil/meat is the best source of Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the world today. Whether these essential fatty acids (EPA, DHA, and DPA) are taken from the natural food source of seal oil or meat, like our ancestors did, or supplement form, it is an excellent contributor to attaining and maintaining good health at any age.

Dr. Cosmas Ho MD

Email: cosmasho@terranovafisheries.nf.net

Website: www.omega3sealoil.com

Italian Meatballs Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 13:57:00 +0000

The other day my mother in law called me and asked me to cook an Italian dinner, she was craving Italian style meatballs, much like the ones she used to order when we lived in Boston. So I searched for recipes on the net until I seen one that looked like a winner and they were very easy to make and best of all I already had most of the ingredients. I avoided all the recipes that called for a 3 different meats and stuck with the recipes that called only for the ground beef and it still came out absolutely hearty. My mother-in-laws comment when she finally finished eating, "I never ate so much" , I overate too, so if your watching your weight, beware this dish is too good to resist, once you start, you won't want to stop.

Meatball Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 pounds of ground beef
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated onion
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage, I used fresh sage from my garden
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degree F . Combine all the above ingredients together. Mix well. Shape 1/3 cup of mixture into meatballs. Of course you just need to measure the first meatball and then you know the size of the meatballs you are making. These are giant meatballs and one probably only needs one or two per serving. I ate three and had a hard time breathing afterwards. LOL they were too good.
Place them on a broiler rack and bake them for about 25-30 minutes.

If your going to serve this dish with pasta, it would be good to start about 15 minutes after you put these into the oven.

Meanwhile, we can start making the marinara sauce or use your own favorite sauce but here's the one I used. By the way this recipe makes about 5-6 servings. Since I was cooking for 9 people, I doubled everything except for the salt. I learned not to ever double the salt from previous attempts with other recipes.

Marinara Sauce
Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can of Italian plum tomatoes, undrained
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried basil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions:

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, cook and stir 3 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients, until the sauce comes to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer. Once the meatballs are out of the oven, add them to the sauce and simmer for 10 more minutes. Do not cover.

Serve with pasta and and your favorite garlic bread is recommended.

Enjoy ;)

Want to know what nutrients are in your foods, meals, or menus?

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Kwe,

September is a busy time for me. This is a time of harvest, canning and preserving jellies and bounties from the year's gardening, while the hunting season and fishing runs begin. And let me tell you, I had my first taste of tenderloin moose steaks yesterday and "oooohhhhhhhhh" gawd I missed the taste of wild game. There is nothing like the taste of the wild. Honestly it doesn't just taste better, its also healthier! This is not just my personal opinion but a scientific fact.

There is a web tool on a website I use once in a while its called nutritional data.com . On this site, there are several useful tools for someone who likes to keep track of what they consume and the nutritional information on not just your foods but your entire menu and recipes. They have so many foods in their database, including wild game such as moose. I experimented with a few recipes a while back, I took two exact recipes with only one difference, recipe 1 was made with 100% beef and recipe 2 was made with 100% moose. Once I was done computing these recipes into their database, I had the option to print out a nutritional label that looks like the labels posted on the sides of almost every food product we ever buy which basically tells us the per cent age of all the minerals and vitamins are in the product. So I did this and compared the nutritional values side by side. I was impressed with the health benefits of wild game in comparison with the beef, the moose is leaner, which is why it usually requires a bit of more tenderizing or marinating but it also contains less fat, the fat in the moose also contains more omega fatty acids which are a healthier alternative to the fat in beef. I think I will take a recipe and show you what I mean sometime so you will understand what I am talking about, I can not verbalize it as well as I can just show you.

The more I understand diet and nutritional values, the more awed and inspired I become of our ancestors who had an incredible lifestyle, diet and ways of life that we can not compare with today. We do the best we can with what we have though and many times these cuisines are spectacular. I love to cook and trying new foods.

Speaking of trying new recipes, I will be preserving and I will keep you posted and let you know how these canning projects come along. I have no recipes to share today but I am working on them. I justed wanted to give you a bit of an update and let you know there are more stories and recipes to come in the near future, including stories from Mi'kmaw role models. So stay tuned.

Take care
Eva

Trout is running, so let's cook it up!

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 23:51:00 +0000

I heard the news today that Atowas'su (trout) is running through our waters of Skye River, so I figured now would be a good time to add a few fish recipes. Trout is a wonderful fish I love to cook. Every so often, I enjoy a simple meal of grilled or pan fried trout with my favorite Luski (Bannock) , and some tapatats, (Potatoes). It always hits the spot. I almost never buy fish at the market and prefer the taste of fresh catch that either my sons or husband usually brings home. For me, quality time is the time and care we take in the preparation of a meal, including the planning, hunting, growing, harvesting, cleaning and cooking the catch. It is often said the most important ingredient in any recipe is Love. A good dish is when you can taste the love. It is true, many times my best dishes were full of Love and enjoyed cooking the dish.

Pan Fried Trout

Ingredients

2 large trout
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 tbs. grated lemon peel
1/2 cup flour
1 tbs. butter
3 tbs. lemon juice
2 tbs. parsley
Lemon slices/wedges

First of all, rinse trout and wipe with a damp towel. Combine 1/2 cup melted butter, salt, pepper and grated lemon rind. Brush inside of trout with this seasoned butter. Dip both sides of trout into flour and make sure the trout is well floured. Pour remaining seasoned butter into skillet. Add trout and fry on both sides about 8-10 minutes. Remove trout and place on dish. In skillet, melt 1 tbs. butter and add lemon juice. Heat and pour over trout with cut up parsley. Serve with lemon slices. This will make 4-6 servings.

Baked Trout Recipe
4 to 6 trout (approximately 1/2 lb. each)
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt (or to your taste)
2 cloves minced garlic (or to your taste)
1 cup Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc wine
2 Tablespoons Italian parsley
2 Tablespoons chopped green onion
2 Tablespoons dry seasoned bread crumbs
4 Tablespoons melted butter or margarine

Wash and dry trout. Rub the outside of trout with lemon juice and sprinkle with salt.

Arrange the minced garlic in the bottom of a buttered baking dish that is large enough to hold the trout in a single layer.

Place trout in the dish and pour the wine over the top.

Sprinkle with parsley, green onion, and bread crumbs. Spoon the melted butter evenly over the top.

Bake at 400F (200c) degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Photo of the Day - Mi'kmaq guide William Muese with his catch of trout ,Bear River, Nova Scotia

Source: Mi'kmaq Portraits Collection.
Printed on obverse: "Micmac Guide, Bear River, N.S." Note the canvas canoe, the woven wood splint fishing creel, and the big catch of trout. Son of Chief James Meuse, William Meuse and his wife Rosie (1892 ca - 1937), had 10 children: John, Jim, Louis, Joseph, Frank, Oliver, Clarence, Bruce, Marguerite and Olive.

Upkweman , Blueberry recipes and storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:52:00 +0000

Today I chose to write about the Upkweman', which is the Blueberry. I wish I started this blog a month ago or sooner but you know its better later than never. The good news is that the market is still rich with fresh blueberries which keep for a week when properly refrigerated. Do not wash until ready to use or they will spoil more quickly, frozen berries are widely available and keep for up to two years.

It is known the world over that the Blueberry is a popular Native American Indians favorite and is legendarily used in many of our own Mi'kmaw traditions. It’s true the blueberry does indeed have a lot of great health benefits. It is full of antioxidants which are great for the immune system, improving vision, heart, lowering cholesterol, fighting free radical damage which is why some call it one of the world’s super foods. Some other benefits include, preventing cancer, preventing urinary tract infections and protecting the brain during aging and improving motor skills. It is often used in several recipes, jams, pies, cereals, desserts, juices, one of my favorites are blueberry jelly and blueberry topped cheesecake. I am still hoping to preserve some blueberry or blackberry Jelly this year. I love homemade preserves.

Did you know that 90% of the World’s supplies of blueberries are grown right here in North America? In our culture is it also used for ceremonial and medicinal purposes as well and utilized as an effective natural dye in our arts and crafts most often on our Splint Ash Baskets, Quill Baskets, and Jewelry and so on. The blueberry can also be found in ancient Mi’kmaq legends, sustaining our people long ago and continues to do so in this day.

In fact a very long Mi’kmaq tradition that has survived for time immemorial right here on Turtle Island, in Indian country this is how we refer to the land known as North America. This long living tradition is the annual blueberry harvest in Maine in which thousands of Mi’kmaq (most of us in fact) have some how been a part of the annual harvest at some point in all our lives. Although its been over a decade since I last picked any blueberries in Maine but my point is we have always been a migrating tribe and continue to be. Each August, it is common to see entire families or carloads of workers get prepared for 1-3 weeks of back laboring work to rake loads and loads of blueberries, travel to the state of Maine, USA so the world can continue to enjoy the delicious taste of wild blueberries. For some that make the journey to Maine, it’s the only work that will be available to them until the next harvesting season. For many though, it’s a matter of keeping tradition alive and gathering with both new and old friends and families, times for work, creating long and lasting friends and play.

“Work is pretty well guaranteed for any Mi’kmaq that can make the trip even though much of the work available has been replaced by technology and machinery, the numbers still range between 800- 1000 Mi’kmaq workers per year. The harvest also includes several Mexicans and youths. But thanks to the Passmaquody Indians, who bought out the Northeast Blueberry Company, the tradition is still alive & will continue on for generations.” they have promised the Mi' kmaq that “as long as they continue to come work for the season, Northeast Blueberry Company will continue to harvest their blueberries by hand.”

In the last few years I have been reading alot of news about the annual blueberry harvest in Maine. This year the AP ran a story on it and includes some recipes from a mi'kmaw woman from N.B.

I have copied and Pasted the article including the recipes. I know it's sort of cheating but I wanted to preserve this article before the link goes dead such as many of my bookmarks in the past.

_________________________________________________________________

Recipes for the blueberry harvest

Associated Press

Indian bread is the tortilla of American Indians of the Northeast. The dense, chewy bread tastes like a cross between a dumpling and a muffin and is eaten with everything. It is especially good dunked in molasses or accompanying baked beans.

This recipe was provided by Margaret Ann Milliea, a 52-year-old Micmac from Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, who travels every year to Maine to participate in the annual blueberry harvest.

At the end of the harvest, Sara Simon, another Micmac and wife of one of the crew leaders for Northeastern Blueberry Company, bakes a blueberry cake for the drivers of the trucks who deliver the berries to the processors. The drivers often work through the night trying to clear the fields of filled blueberry bins before the harvesters resume their work at dawn.

Indian Bread

(Start to finish 45 minutes)

Vegetable oil

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350 F. Liberally oil a 9x9-inch baking pan.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Add the water and mix well. The dough should resemble a very thick pancake batter. Transfer the dough to the baking dish and spread evenly.

Bake 30 minutes, or until the bread is firm. Increase heat to 450 F and bake another 5 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Served warm or cooled.

Makes 9 servings.

Blueberry Cake

(Start to finish 1 hour)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 cup blueberries, lightly dusted with flour

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a 9x12-inch cake pan.

In a large bowl, use a mixer to cream the sugar and margarine. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the milk and mix well. Add the flour and milk mixture to the sugar and butter and mix by hand. Fold in the blueberries.

Transfer the batter to the cake pan. Tap lightly on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.

Makes 12 servings.

Warm Blueberry Brie

(Start to finish 40 minutes)

2/3 cup fresh blueberries

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons sugar

10 sheets phyllo dough

8-ounce wheel of Brie

Olive or canola oil cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In a small bowl, combine the blueberries, lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar. Toss to combine and coat evenly. Set aside.

Arrange the phyllo sheets in a stack on a baking sheet. Place the wheel of Brie in the center. Carefully spoon the blueberry mixture over the cheese, mounding it on top.

Fold the edges of the top sheet of phyllo dough up and over the cheese and blueberries, closing it loosely at the top. Spray it lightly with cooking spray, then repeat with remaining sheets.

Bake the Brie for 25 minutes, or until phyllo is lightly browned. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 to 6 servings
___________________________________________________________

Now here I found a recipe for Blueberry Peach Crisp from the Canadian Diabetes Associates website under the aboriginal section titled- First Nations Healthy choices recipes series.

Blueberry Peach Crisp

Filling
4 medium peaches, peeled & sliced
375 ml (1½ cups) blueberries or Saskatoon berries, fresh or frozen
15 ml (1 tbsp) lemon juice
30 ml (2 tbsp) flour or cornstarch
5 ml (1 tsp) cinnamon

Topping
125 ml (½ cup) oatmeal
75 ml ( 1/3 cup) flour
2.5 ml (½ tsp) cinnamon
60 ml (¼ cup) margarine, non-hydrogenated
30 ml (2 tbsp) brown sugar
75 ml ( 1/3 cup) low-calorie sweetener with sucralose e.g. Splenda®

Directions:

In large bowl, combine peaches, blueberries, and lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, combine flour (or cornstarch) and cinnamon. Mix into peach and blueberry mixture. Pour into 2 L (8 inch) square baking dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, blend together topping ingredients until crumbly. Spoon over filling.

Bake at 190° C (375° F) for 30 minutes or until bubbling.

Oh yeah, I would appreciate if you can cast your vote for the poll at the bottom of the page. Please and thank you in advance.

Welcome to my very first post on Mi'kmaw recipes

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Nicholas) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:26:00 +0000

Pjila'si,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for visiting my blog. I hope to share some recipes I have gathered over the last few years. I was hoping to publish some of these recipes but things have not worked out that way for different reasons. I would still like to share a large collection of recipes that I have gathered from the Native community, mainly Mi'kmaq. I would like to get some feedback on what types of recipes you would most likely to use or enjoy. I will try and list at least one recipe every day or every other day. My first recipe will be something all Mi'kmaw people have enjoyed for a long time and that is the 4 cents cake. This contribution is from Mi'kmaq culinary expert and professional guide, Elder Gilbert Sewell of Pabineau First Nation, NB. I would like to thank Gilbert for his contributions to the Mi'kmaq Heritage Cookbook project.

4 Cents cake - Lusgnign
By Gilbert Sewell - Professional Guide and Culinary Expert

Ingredients

Flour
Water
Baking Powder (Preferably a new can)
Salt
Pepper
Corn Oil
Sugar

Directions

Place 3 cups of flour in a bowl . Add three tablespoons of baking powder. Add a small salt packet, and one sugar packet. Pour in 3 cups of cold spring water. Make sure the dough is nice and heavy. Before you mix, place corn oil in an electric frying pan at 150 to 170 degrees. You must place dough in a sizzling pan. Spread with a spoon until flat. Cook for 7 minutes, then turn over and cook for another 10 minutes. Make sure it does not burn. Add corn oil when you turn over. Trust me, this is the way we cook Lusgnign in Pabineau. Enjoy

Note from Eva: If you would like to learn more about Gilbert, there is a nice documentary on the internet that is easily viewed about traditional medicinal plants. I enjoyed it very much. Much of the documentary is spoken in Mi'kmaq which I really loved to hear but narrated in English by the film maker. Click here. If you can't watch the video, I have copied and pasted the transcript of the video below. Enjoy : ) I would also like to write a bit more about Gilbert in the near future as one of our featured role models, he was kind enough to share four recipes with us and I would like to release those to you, one recipe at a time. By the way, his Pabineau Luski is pretty good, and highly recommended so enjoy. : )

Transcript of Video

NARRATOR:

Native Canadian medicine is the science of relationships.

NARRATOR:

Gilbert Sewell begins his day by greeting the sun

NARRATOR:

Gilbert collects medicinal plants from around his home in Pabineau, New Brunswick.

He will use this muskrat root to treat sore throats and chest colds.

For Gilbert, how a plant is gathered is as important as the plant itself. Gilbert thanks the land for the medicine by offering tobacco.

NARRATOR:

Tobacco is a sacred currency that reinforces the relationship between the patient, the healer, medicines and the land.

Because part of a healer's responsibility is to keep the land healthy too.

NARRATOR:

Labrador tea is used for upset stomachs.

NARRATOR:

Red willow bark contains compounds similar to aspirin.

Close by is wintergreen, a heart medicine.

GILBERT SEWELL:

For us the woods is like our pharmacy. We don't have to run down to the store every time we have an ailment. It doesn't cost you anything. All you have to know is where to pick it. And if you don't know where to pick it go to an elder. Give him some tobacco and say, look, could you help me and show me the ways of the Mi'kmaq people.

NARRATOR:

Each plant is prepared and preserved in its own way.

Some processes take weeks.

NARRATOR:

Raymond is looking for his father-in-law's help to quit smoking.

NARRATOR:

Gilbert uses ceremonies to focus Raymond's commitment to healing.

NARRATOR:

Worldwide, the natural health business is booming.

NARRATOR:

In response, Health Canada is revamping its regulations for natural health products. It carried out extensive consultations with aboriginal communities. At first this initiative met some resistance.

PHIL WADDINGTON:

Super: Phil Waddington, Health Canada

Many of the people that are within the Aboriginal community are concerned that we are actually going to be taking the information from them. And that is not what we will be doing. It is only if somebody brings that information and says "I want to take this product and move it to the mass market," that we'd be looking at having our regulations apply.

NARRATOR:

Products based on Native medicines are already beginning to show up in the mass market.

RICK STEWART:

Super: Rick Stewart, Lakota Herbal Products

The world wide market is in the billons, and billons, and billons of dollars.

They want to be a part of the herbal game. They look at everybody making all this money and they say "Hey, ya know, a lot of this is our knowledge." Like echinacea is the number one selling herb in the world today. Right? And yet they have no piece of it.

NARRATOR:

Health Canada's new regulations focus on labelling. They recognize the patient's right to decide what they are taking. And to know what evidence shows that a product is safe and actually works.

PHIL WADDINGTON:

The standards of evidence that would be applied, would be proportional to the degree of risk associated with the product. So for example if a product was going to treat colds and flu's, then basing that on traditional literature, most people are comfortable with that. If you're going to treat something a bit more life threatening or is more serious in its outcome, then you would have to have more evidence to be able to support it.

NARRATOR:

But Native medicine may present other challenges. It's an integrated practice. And the effectiveness of a particular remedy has as much to do with the healer and the patient as with active ingredients.

MICHAEL MITCHELL:

Super: Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell, executive director, Centre for Nation Building

I can't see the white race going that far or having that kind of patience. And that's why they say "Can we bottle this? Can we put this in pill form?" Probably not.

PHIL WADDINGTON:

What they've said is that you can't take a product out of the practise of medicine and make it a traditional cure. The interaction that goes on between the healer and the person that comes to that healer for help, the presentation of the medicine, the way that it is gathered. It is a very spiritual medium in which to two work together. And to take that and sterilize it and put it in a bottle and sit it on the shelf. One thing that we have heard very regularly, from within the community, is that you can't really do that.