Dinner With My Ancestors

Saturday mornings in the summer in my neighborhood mean the village Farmer's Market is in full swing, so I stopped by today and picked up some fresh corn and patty pan squash. The corn was very sweet and juicy, and I decided to make it for dinner. Being from the South originally, summer meals of fresh garden produce were very common. Those thoughts led me to putting on a big pot of pinto beans to go along with my purchased produce. I had everything on the stove this afternoon when I realized that I had inadvertently put together a meal that not only was common in my Southern upbringing but also the revered foods of my ancestors.

 

Native Americans domesticated the crops of corn, beans, and squash thousands of years ago. These three crops were grown closely together; each helping the other grow. The corn provided support for the vining beans, and the squash grown at base of the corn plant acted like a type of mulch; the wide leaves holding in moisture. In the area of nutrition, the beans eaten with the corn provided a complete protein that provided adequate nutrition even during times when game might be scarce.

 

Ceremonies were often held to honor the contribution of these foods, and corn meal was often sprinkled by healers and shamans as part of important rituals. Native Americans referred to these three crops as the "Three Sisters".

 

If I had leaned towards my Southern roots, I might have cut up the squash with onions, floured it, and fried it in a skillet. Corn would be cut off the cob, the cobs scraped, and cooked in a skillet with butter, salt, and pepper, and the beans would be cooked with a big ham bone. If it had been a Native American meal, the corn might have been made into patties, and the beans and squash cooked together with game; perhaps squirrel. What ended up happening was an amalgamation of my cultures and experiences. The corn was, in fact, cut from the cobs and the cobs scraped for the milky corn starch and fried in a skillet with butter, but instead of the salt and pepper, I added lime and cayenne pepper, to make it reminiscent of Mexican "elotes", which are spiced, roasted ears of corn on a stick. I also made the requisite pot of beans, pinto variety, and sauteed my patty pans with garlic, onion, and olive oil. While that could happily be a complete meal for me, I also bought some fresh, whole red mullets from the grocery, and pan fried them, and topped them with a yellow tomato and red onion salsa seasoned with lime, salt, and a bit of sugar. I guess I really don't have a "style" of cooking. It is a lot like me: a mixture from all over.