Endangered Eating

Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods by Sarah Lohman is a very readable account of the efforts to preserve several cultural culinary treasures. Inspired by the organization titled Slow Food International, and their endeavor called the Ark of Taste, Lohman selected a few very interesting American traditional foods, and described their current state, their cultural significance, and some recipes that use them. In addition, she presented the history of the owners of these foods. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Foods that are covered:

• A few special varieties of dates from the Palm Springs, California, area
• Native Hawaiian sugarcane now raised only by a few descendants of the original Polynesian inhabitants of the islands
• Navajo sheep, a special breed that’s become quite rare
• A specialized type of salmon fishing practiced by natives of the Puget Sound area in the Pacific Northwest and nearby Canadian islands
• Wild rice from the Great Lakes region (now being replaced by cultivated forms of the native marsh crop)
• Heirloom apple varieties once used for making cider, now almost lost
• Louisiana Filé Powder, traditionally gathered by native Americans and used for making gumbo
• Carolina runner peanuts, a small and flavorful variety that was almost lost because they were not good for mechanized processing.

As I read many of the chapters, I thought about the way I had visited the locations that Lohman describes, and how I had heard about some of the rare and endangered foods she discusses. This made me especially enjoy reading these chapters. Here are a few of my memories.

Santa Barbara: Dates from a Farmers’ Market

At a California Farmers’ Market: empress dates and honey dates (source)

The first chapter of Endangered Eating is titled “Coachella Valley Dates.” As I read, I recalled the date vendors from the Coachella and Palm Springs area who came to the Santa Barbara Farmers’ Market where I shopped during several long visits there in the past. I particularly remember the incredible variety of dates, and the way the vendors offered samples so that one could decide which were the most delicious. 

Lohman writes:

“Although the Coachella Valley primarily grows commercial date varieties like Medjools and Deglet Noors, several small farmers still carry on the tradition of growing unique date varieties that were developed in the area a century ago. It’s these rare American dates, grown nowhere else on the planet, that have been onboarded to the Ark of Taste: Empress, Abada, Blonde Beauties, Brunette Beauties, Honey, McGill’s, Tarbazal, and Triumph.” (p. 2)

Although as Lohman points out, few trees with these special date varieties still are growing in California, it’s interesting that they can be tasted at least from a few sellers at the farmers’ markets of the area. I’m curious as well about the dates we tasted at a date farm in Israel, where we also encountered a number of different and interesting date flavors.

Santa Barbara Farmers' Market Date Vendor with his samples (2011)

Maui, Hawaii: Sugarcane and Native Agriculture

Early Hawaiian agriculture shown at Iao Valley State Park (2009)

Sugarcane first reached Hawaii with the original Polynesian colonists, centuries before the famous voyage by Captain Cook. This variety of cane was kupuna kō or Hawaiian legacy sugarcane. It was cultivated by the native people along with their traditional crops including coconut, taro, breadfruit, Hawaiian purple sweet potato, and Kalua pig, sometimes known as “canoe foods” because they were brought on the canoes of these early settlers. I wrote about this native agriculture here: Native Species and Canoe Foods.

Now, in the twenty-first century, Lohman visited a few farmers who are growing the native variety of sugarcane. She writes: “The Ark of Taste has five entries for Hawaiian sugarcane, chosen to represent the over forty varieties of legacy kō that have been identified as unique to the Hawaiian Islands.” (p. 38)

Native sugarcane is different from the variety imported by Europeans and cultivated in destructive, farming operations and refined in huge industrial refineries (which entirely ceased production in 2016). Her chapter on native Hawaiian sugarcane explores the current efforts and the history of sugar in the islands. One interesting fact is that sugarcane cultivation had two distinct histories: one with the Polynesian settlement of the islands in the Pacific, and the other with its spread to the west via Arab and European merchants and then to the New World, where it was cultivated in the Caribbean and the American South.

A sample of native foods that I tried at a festival on the Big Island in 2013. 

New Mexico: Navajo Sheep

Near Sandia, New Mexico (2015)

I’ve been on Navajo reservations more in Arizona than in New Mexico, the subject of Lohman’s chapter on the endangered species of sheep that are precious to the Navajo people for their wool and for meat. Thanks to the Tony Hillerman novels and their sequels by his daughter Anne Hillerman, I feel as if I am very very familiar with the people on the New Mexico part of the area!

Lohman describes the sheep and their special wool, which makes very beautiful weavings: 

“Navajo-Churro have an inner coat of lustrous wool and a shaggy outer coat that can reach up to 14 inches in length. The low lanolin content of the wool means that very little water is required to wash it, which is ideal in desert conditions. The wool is perfect for hand weaving because it is remarkably straight, strong, and durable. And it comes in over a dozen different natural colors, ranging from dark black to pure white as well as heather gray, tan, peach, and a light reddish-brown. Navajo-Churro wool is so recognizable and connected to Diné weaving that in the Art of Native America gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a Diné chief’s blanket dating to 1840 is labeled “handspun undyed and indigo-dyed Churro fleece.” The sheen of the wool in the blanket is unmistakable.”

I love learning about Navajo art and history, so this chapter was especially interesting to me.

A Navajo weaving — “Two Grey Hills” — in my home.

Traditional Salmon Fishing in the Pacific Northwest

Graffiti in Alert Bay, Canada (2018)

A few years ago, we traveled on a National Geographic cruise to see the Puget Sound and many islands and towns in Washington state and Canada. The cultural specialist onboard the ship introduced us to many historic facts about the Native Americans who lived in the area, and he especially talked about a tribal group called the Lummi, who employed a traditional type of salmon fishing with nets. He described. how this method had been lost but was being reintroduced. (My blog post about this is here.)

Lohman’s chapter called “Sxwo’le Straits Salish Reefnet Fishing” describes this exact restoration of a nearly forgotten fishing technique, and describes the struggles of Native Americans in both the US and Canada to recreate their traditional practice.

Reefnet fishing (Sxwo’le) is an ecologically responsible method of trapping the salmon on their run up one of the rivers where they go to spawn. It’s non-destructive of by-catch, and humane to the salmon. It uses a net called a reef. Lohman’s description:

“The reef is a web of rope which guides salmon both up from the ocean floor and in toward the net, like a funnel. The reef starts with two 200-foot rope lines that extend upstream from the platforms; the lines float with the help of buoys. The ends of these lines are about 80 feet apart at the upstream end, and narrow to the width of the net between the two floating platforms. Ropes are tied at intervals horizontally between these two main lines. At the upstream end, these horizontal ropes are anchored 80 feet below the surface of the water, nearly at the bay’s floor. Gradually, the ropes slope upward until their depth matches the opening of the net strung between the platforms. 

 

“Onto these horizontal ropes are tied blue or green plastic ribbons that shimmy in the tide and look like underwater plants. The ribbons trick the salmon into thinking that they are swimming safely on the ocean floor up a shoal, a natural shallowing of the bay.” (p. 111)

There are no illustrations in Endangered Eating, but I found this image helpful in trying to imagine the activity, involving several boats and a large system of nets:

Reef netting near Point Roberts, ca. 1940 (source)

Blog post © 2023 mae sander

Photos by mae sander or as credited