BEANS AND GREENS
Nutritional Data for BEANS; BLACK, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
Nutritional Data for BEANS; GREAT NORTHERN, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
Nutritional Data for BEANS; KIDNEY, ALL TYPES, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
Nutritional Data for SUCCOTASH; (CORN AND LIMAS), CND, WITH WHOLE KERNEL CORN, SOL&LIQ--Doesn't include extras like the cream sauce, below, just plain corn 'n' lima beans. CND means they are canned -- hove lost lots of nutrients, have added salt. From the "Limas" search, you can find raw ones.
Baked Black Beans, Serves 6
1 lb black beans 1 large onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 3 stalks celery, diced 1 minced carrot bay leaf, thyme, parsley, tied in bouquet 1 tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper 3 Tbs butter 1 cup sour cream mixed w/ 1 cup plain yoghurt Chopped parsley
Soak beans overnight in water to cover, or boil 2 minutes and soak 1 hour, then re-boil. Drain soaked beans, add 6 cups of water. Add vegetables and seasonings, cook slowly until beans are tender, 1 1/2-2 hrs. Discard herb bouquet. Place beans and thir juice in bean pot or casserole. Add butter. Cover and bake until beans are tender, 2 hours. Mix yoghurt and sour cream and stir into hot beans.Sprinkle parsley over the top and serve from casserole.
Succotash with Cream, serves 8-10
2 cups fresh shelled lima beans 1/4 tsp dried rosemary 2 cups fresh corn stripped from cob 4 Tbs butter 3 tsp chopped parsley 1 can chicken consomme (not diluted) 2 Tbs flour 1 cup whipping cream
Shell the beans out of the pod like peas. (About 2 lbs of limas in pods shells out to 2 - 2 1/2 cups.) Place beans in a small amount of boiling salted water with rosemary and boil covered about 20 - 30 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, strip fresh corn from cob. Just as beans are done, frizzle the corn in 2 Tbs of butter (it only takes a few minutes if the corn is fresh, should never take longer than 5 minutes). Add the remaining butter and the cooked, hot beans. Stir in parsley. Heat the soup just to melt it if it has become jellied in the can. In a bowl, add the soup to the flour and mix till smooth. Pour this into the bean mixture, and stir over gentle heat until it thickens slightly and the raw taste of flour is gone. Add the cream. Taste for seasoning (soup probably has enough salt) Heat to boiling, serve hot with more parsley sprinkled on it, or black pepper ground coarse over it (unless somebody doesn't like this). Note: you can if you must use canned corn, but don't use canned limas for this.
Green Chili Beans Stir Fry, serves 4
1 lb green beans, string, snap in 2" pieces 2 Tbsp oil 2 cloves slightly crushed garlic 2 (2 ") dried red chili peppers 2 Tbsp raw blanced skinless peanuts 1 tsp chili oil
Pour boiling water over beans in colander for a few seconds. Drain, pat dry, set aside. Heat a wok or large skillet vewry hot (about 30 seconds); add oil and heat 20 seconds. Add garlic and chis, stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add beans and peanuts. Styir-fry for 30 seconds. Remove from fire, toss with chili oil, serve at once.
Cream of green beans soup--serves 10
2 quarts chicken stock 1/4 cup butter 1/2 cup flour 1 onion chopped fine 1 stalk of celery chopped 2 leeks chopped fine 2 sprigs parsley chopped 1 1/2 cups cooked green beans (can use frozen, not canned) 1 cup cream mixed thoroughly with -- 2 egg yolks
Melt butter in large soup pot, add flour and stir until golden. Add chicken broth and cook stirring until smooth. Add vegetables. Simmer 30 minutes, skimming several times. Add green beans, reserving a few for gannish, and simmer 5 minutes. Blend a batch at a time until all vegetables are pureed. Return to pan and reheat. Whip egg yolks thoroughly into cream. Add some of the hot soup to this mixture, then pour the mixture into the hot soup, stirring. Cook, stirring, below boiling point for 3 minutes. Don't let it boil. Taste for seasoning, add a little salt. (The tastier the chicken broth you start with the less salt you need at the end). Serve with a few beans floating on each bowl.
Wild (using tame) Greens and Flowers Salad -- Serves 4 - 6
Salads were much liked in the Spring when new, tender greens appeared. A great variety of mixtures was used. Since salt was uncommon or not used at all, salads were flavored by herbs, oil pressed from seeds, and especially with a vinegar made from fermentd, evaporated uncooked maple sap (which we can't do or get). So this is an approximation of the spring tonic salads beloved by all woodland people after the long winters.
1 cup watercress leaves and (only) tender stems 1 cup lamb's quarter new leaves (or use small spinach leaves) 1 cup arugula lettuce torn (not cut) to bite-size pieces; can also use Bibb or less espensive leafy (not iceberg) lettuces 1/2 cup tender nasturtium and violet leaves torn up 1/2 cup nasturtium and violet flowers (in season) 1 Tbsp honey 1/4 cup cider vinegar 1/3 cup salad oil As much tender mint leaves as you like in the salad 2 tsp fresh mint chopped fine and bruised 2 tsp chopped tarragon (fresh) or 1 tsp dried if necessary optional: salt and pepper to taste
Combine honey and vinegar, whisk in oil, which in crushed mint. Season to taste with small amount of salt. Pour over greens and flowers in large bowl, tossing for at least 3 minuts to cover all lightly with dressing. Serve immediately.
Lambs quarters (chenopodium album) is a fuzzy-leafed weed that can be found in city empty lots (though it depends on the nvironment whether you'd want to eat if if gathered there). I don't know its Ojibwe name, "Indian spinach" it was called by older ladies years ago. It is very very high in beta carotene (plant vitamin A) and calcium, and is a good food for nursing mothers where there are no dairy cattle or milk. Violets of all sorts flower all over city and suburban lawns as weeds. All species are high in vintamins C and A. Chickweed (Stellaria media, Ojibwe name winibidja bibagano, or "toothplant"") is another common spring herb that grows all over (as law weed for example) as low, spreading mat, It is very high in vitamin C, and was therefore a common anti-scurvy remedy for this deficiency disease. I'll be running ID pix for it in the Plants section here. Small amounts of new mustard leaves (brassica negra) were used for pungnt flavor, probably not too easy for city-dwellers to find, but sometimes sold in produce or health food stores. Wild onions and leeks was also traditional and sought from early spring until gone in winter -- flower heads as well as leaves and bulbs would be eaten in salads as well as cooked>
Salad oil was pressed from some kinds of seeds I don't know, from sunflowr seeds, but most especially the oil that can be pressed/cooked out of acorn meal which has been cold-water leached of bitter tannin. There was supposedly less of the bitter tannin in acorns from certain oaks: mitigomisk. Bitter kind was called wisugimitigomisk (bitter oak). The acorn meal was a general good (and whole acorns of the sweet kind were roasted) and the oil was all-purpose cooking and household utility oil, used on bullrishes for weaving to keep them soft, water resistant, and shiny.
The general idea of a traditional native salad is to cut down on salt, by emphasizing flavors from vinegar, honey or maple syrup, herbs, and ground pungent seeds (such as mustard). The petals of most flowers that will later be edible fruits or berries can be eaten, but not all taste good. Elder flowers and basswood flowers are especially good.
What I find rather interesting is that there is really no early record of salads in European cuisine -- although peasants and country people certainly ate various kinds of early wild plants. The idea of salad seems to have been brought back to France from America in the 18th century or so. (I'm not sure English ever really have caught on about salads.) Escoffier, in the famous Guide Culinaire has braised lettuces, pureed, stuffed leaves, creamed, souflèed -- but not raw! Cucumbers are parboiled, then fussed with in many ways. Cauliflower, one of the nicest (raw) salad vegetables is cooked. He does talk of cooking new peas quickly (unlike the English who cook boiled vegetables to death), but any raw vegetable, root or leafy, is carved up for a granish, or laid around as green frills, considered only for show, not edible.
So, although I've never seen this discussed in European cookbooks or food discussions, I think the very idea of salads came from Native people. AFter all, what did Europeans do with the tomato? for 100 years they considered it ornamental but a deadly poison!
Traditionally, the main huge salad eating-feasts were in early spring, when a great many wild plants -- tough and inedible even if cooked later -- come up as tender new shoots and leaves. What we now can do, because of refrigeration and shipping, is eat salads all year long -- and we should! All vegetables lose some of their nutrient value in any kind of cooking. Young people should be aware that delicious and healthful salads are part of our Native food traditions, so eat plenty of it.
Last Updated: Thursday, December 21, 1995 - 10:34:25 PM
--Frybread
--Native cookbooks