Native American Recipe: Wild Rice + Sweet Potato (2024)

FAQs

How did Native Americans cook wild rice? ›

The Ojibwa prepared wild rice a number of ways. For example they used the rice to make gem cakes, duck and fowl stuffing, steamed rice puffs (eaten with sugar and cream for breakfast), cooked with deer fat and maple sugar, or boiled with rabbit excrement.

In the Ojibwe language, wild rice (Zizania palustris) is called manoomin, which is related by analogy to a word (minomin) meaning 'good berry.

Native Americans were known to have grown sweet potato extensively by the 1700s and soon thereafter it became a popular staple of the South. Even today, sweet potato is much more popular in the south than the north as a food.

For northern Native Americans, wild rice is more than a staple food. It is a gift from the Great Spirit and a sacred component of their culture, honored in their history, tradition, ceremony, and way of life. Wild rice is vital to the ecology of thousands of northern lakes, streams, and rivers.

You don't have to soak wild rice, but you can if you like. Soaking the rice in a bowl of water for at least 30 minutes or as long as 2 hours will cut down on the cooking time by 50%, but since it takes time to soak, it doesn't really save you any time.

The chief reason to rinse is to remove surface starch from rice grains, which can make them gummy as they cook. Soaking allows rice to absorb water, giving it a leg up on cooking. This helps it to have a better, more even texture, instead of drying out while the inside is not evenly steamed and fluffed.

Wild rice is a good source of Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA). Some research has indicated that ALA is beneficial to people with type 2 diabetes. It may boost the body's ability to produce insulin and reduce the symptoms of diabetic nerve damage. Like most grains, wild rice is highly effective when it comes to reducing hunger.

Because of its unique harvesting needs (learn more about it here), wild rice is significantly more expensive than brown rice. In fact, it's one of the most expensive grains. In Washington State, as of January 2023, wild rice costs $5.16 per pound and brown rice costs 80 cents a pound.

Wild rice once grew far and wide across the upper Midwest, but its yields have been dropping for decades due to lakeshore development, pollution, and both warmer air and water temperatures—wild rice likes harsh winters.

In the islands off the coast of Yucatan and Honduras the sweet potato was called axi and batatas or betatas by the natives; in 1514, Peter Martyr named nine varieties that grew in Honduras.

What country eats the most sweet potatoes? ›

China is the world's biggest producer and consumer of sweetpotato, where it is used for food, animal feed, and processing (as food, starch, and other products).

Sweet potatoes, which originated in Central or South America, were first cultivated in Peru, perhaps as early as 2500 BCE. Columbus took the plant home with him in the late 15th century, after which it spread around the world.

Corn was the most important staple food grown by Native Americans, but corn stalks also provided a pole for beans to climb and the shade from the corn benefited squash that grew under the leaves.

Important crops and wild foods included pumpkins, wild rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggs, honey, a variety of nuts, cranberries, strawberries, wild plums, roots, greens, and a huge variety of other fruits and vegetables.

Native people in the Great Lakes boiled rice and ate it with corn, beans, or squash. Meat, a small amount of grease, or maple sugar was often added for seasoning. As a treat, it was occasionally parched like popcorn.

Before the electric rice cooker was invented, rice was cooked on a kamado, a large stove built in a corner of the kitchen. To boil rice on a kamado, first a fire is started using firewood. Next, a pot containing the rice and water is placed over the fire.

Meat, fish, and shellfish were roasted, and ashcakes made from ground-up grains and tubers could be baked in the hearth. Shellfish, berries, and nuts could be eaten raw. Boiling food into stews was, for a time, more difficult.

When they wanted to harvest the rice, they would take a canoe through the rice, untie the bundles and shake the rice into the canoe. Tied rice was heavier, and they were able to harvest almost all of the rice at one time.