Many of Santa Fe’s restaurants are the epitome of the concept of fusion, offering dishes that bridge the culinary gaps between cultures. Despite the international flavours, traditions are still strong. In homes and restaurants the visitor will still discover the delicious New Mexican dishes that depend upon the most basic New World ingredients: corn, beans, squash and chillies.
Native Americans and Their Food
An ancient culinary heritage of wild
game and native plants
When the first Spanish explorers ventured north from Mexico City in the sixteenth century and wandered into what is now the American Southwest, they encountered the descendants of a great prehistoric civilisation, the Anasazi. These Native Americans, known as the Pueblo Indians, were clustered along the Rio Grande near present-day Santa Fe in separate villages, or pueblos. They made excellent use of nearly every edible animal and plant substance imaginable. For protein, the Native Americans hunted and trapped deer, rabbits, quail, pronghorn, bison and many other mammals and birds. The meat of this game was usually grilled over coals or added to a pot and turned into a stew.
However, some tribes (such as the Apaches) had taboos against eating certain animals that they regarded as repulsive: snakes, fish and owls, for example. Later on, after the appearance of European food, game was viewed as “poor man’s meat”. Today, of course, game has made a comeback because of its exotic nature and appeal to adventurous diners.
Corn is held sacred by Native Americans and has been an important part of the Southwestern diet for centuries. The rich colours of this Indian corn only appear once the corn has dried; when it is fresh the corn is a more subdued yellow or white.
The food plants eaten by the Native Americans were divided into two categories: those harvested in the wild and those cultivated plants that had managed to adapt to the dry desert climate or were irrigated. Harvested wild plants included acorns (from which flour was made), berries such as chokecherry and juniper, yucca fruits, various herbs such as wild mint, mushrooms, mesquite seeds (sometimes called beans) and agave hearts (mescal), which were roasted in pits by the Mescalero Apaches and other tribes. Three other uncultivated crops were very important in Native American cooking (and are most commonly used today): cacti, piñon nuts and chiltepíns (wild, berrylike chillies). The cactus fruits and leaves were usually eaten raw, as in salads, while the piñon nuts were usually mixed with honey as a snack or dessert. Chiltepíns were used as a pungent spice before the Spanish introduced domesticated chillies.
Even though wild crops were important, the ancient Anasazi culture of the Southwest—and later the Pueblo Indians—depended on some important domesticated crops: corn, beans, squash and (after the Spanish arrived) chillies. It is not a coincidence that these foods are the foundation of Southwestern cuisine. Although domesticated in Mexico and Central America, these crops had moved north to what is now New Mexico long before the Spanish arrived.
Here in New Mexico we not only claim the oldest regional cuisine in the United States but continue to enjoy many of the foods that have been part of the Native American diet for hundreds or even thousands of years. Despite the influences of these ingredients, Native American cuisine these days has mostly been incorporated into what has become New Mexican cuisine, so wild plants and game are no longer as common as they once were.
Corn is so important to Native Americans that it serves as the basis of the cuisine and also plays a pivotal role in their religion and many of their ceremonies. The four kinds of corn—yellow, white, red and blue—were a gift from the gods or creator who taught the people how to plant, harvest and use it before they were allowed to walk Mother Earth.
The Anasazis, ancestors of the the builders of the Taos Pueblo, built these cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado. At one time close to 5,000 people lived on Mesa Verde in 200- and 300-room apartment houses.
Beans, domesticated 10,000 years ago in Peru, even predate cultivated corn. Easy to grow and store, beans quickly became an essential part of the Native American diet. The Hopi grow 14 kinds of beans in a variety of colours, which when combined with corn provide a complete protein source for times when game is scarce.
Chilli, another staple in the diet, was domesticated in both South and Central America about the same time as beans and also migrated north. And although there is little doubt that domesticated chilli was introduced to Native Americans of the Southwest by the Spaniards, there is evidence that at least the wild chiltepín was already growing in the Southwest when the Spaniards arrived.
One way to get a feel of the life of Native Americans and a taste of their version of New Mexican cuisine is to visit a pueblo. In the autumn, with chillies sun-drying on roofs or hung in strings (ristras) and corn stacked around the pueblo to dry, it is almost like stepping back in time. Occasionally, visitors are invited into homes for some food. Many of the dishes, such as enchiladas and tamales, show a Hispanic influence, but there are a few specialities that are uniquely Indian. Interestingly, most Indian dishes today are made with ingredients imported by Europeans rather than with native foods that still exist in abundance.
Mutton stew was probably imported into the pueblos in the Santa Fe area from the Navajos, who live farther west. The Navajos were sheepherders whose sheep were originally from Mexico by way of Spain. The origin of fry bread, the bread that puffs up when it is fried in oil (lard is preferred), seems to be Navajo as well. Interestingly, a smaller version of this bread, called sopaipillas, is served in Santa Fe and Albuquerque restaurants. Wheat was imported by the Europeans; few Indians today cook with acorn flour. One traditional bread that probably antedates the Europeans is blue corn bread; undoubtedly, there was an earlier form of it that lacked the baking powder and milk used today. It is made with flour from Indian blue corn, and its brilliant blue colour can be disconcerting to those not accustomed to it.
Pueblo religious ceremonies were usually held in underground rooms—usually round—called kivas. This wall painting is in a kiva is at the Coronado State Monument, 80 kilometres southwest of Santa Fe.
Other dishes likely to be encountered at the pueblos are fried red chillies, dried pods that are simply fried in lard or oil and eaten; green chilli stew, which is virtually identical to the Hispanic version; green pumpkin stew, which is pumpkin stewed with corn, onion, green chillies and garlic; and red chilli stew, which is usually made with pork.
Since meat was preserved in the old days by either salting or drying, an Indian favourite is beef or lamb jerky, which is often treated with chilli powder. The jerky may be added to stews if fresh meat is not available.
The Deer Dance at San Juan Pueblo, which takes place in February, is performed by the young people of the tribe to honour the deer for the many gifts it has given them. The profile of a deer dancer is the symbol of the San Juan Pueblo people.
The Spanish Contribution
The Old World meets the New and
transforms the eating habits of the region
Imagine Southwestern cuisine without beef, lamb, pork, chicken, coriander, cumin, limes, garlic, onions, wheat bread, rice, beer and wine. That’s where New World cooking would be without the Old. The Spanish colonists brought a new dimension to this ancient cuisine because the native peoples had never before experienced food sources such as cattle and wheat. The new foodstuffs merged with the old but did not overwhelm them. Rather, they were incorporated into the ancient techniques, and the result was a unique and highly spiced cuisine.
The Spaniards who first settled Santa Fe brought with them the seeds