Herrons Whisper
Recipes

(Provided by Rena Dennison, Lanope Tribe)

Fry Bread

3 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups warm water

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Dough should be like soft biscuit dough. Drop by rounded tablespoons into flour. Stretch out between hands, or pat to slightly flatten. Gently lay into skillet or kettle of hot shortening. Brown on one side, turn and brown on the other side. Remove from shortening. Drain in a brown paper bag. Serve hot.

Possum Grapes

Gather ripe possum grapes (the kind that sour after the first frost), wash and stew them in water. When cooked, mash them in the same water. Let them sit to settle the seeds to the bottom. Strain off the juice. Bring juice to a boil and thicken with corn meal. Keep cooking until corn meal is completely cooked. Can be served hot or cold.

Grandmother Woolfs Pumpkin

Cook mashed pumpkin in a saucepan. Add maple sugar or brown sugar to taste. You may also add chopped walnuts. Serve hot.

Succotash

Dried lima beans
Dried corn
Meat drippings or broth
Onions
Garlic
Carrots and celery (if desired)

Take your time to do this right. Put all ingredients except the corn into a pot and begin to cook them over a low heat. Simmer until beans start to swell and become tender. Add corn. Cook until corn and beans are done.

Hominy

Hominy can be used to make soup. Add onion, garlic, salt and meat such as deer or buffalo to water. Some grocery stores now sell rabbit, which can also be used. Cook the meat down to make a broth. Add vegetables that Native Americans would have had. Be sure to include the hominy. Most corn soups have a clear broth to them.

Kanahena

2 cups water
1 cup corn meal, moistened with cold water
1 teaspoon salt

Bring water to a boil. Add salt. Wet corn meal and add slowly to the boiling water. Stir until done. (My children like for me to add ground walnuts and maple syrup.)

Recipe from "A Cherokee Story," by Susan L. Roth

Teas

Sassafras, mint, spearmint, peppermint

Fried Hominy

Drain hominy. Fry in a little butter with onions and meat. Add eggs and fry until eggs are done. Serve hot.

Mashed Pumpkin

Cover the bottom of a pan with water; add pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) and a pinch of salt. Slowly heat until pumpkin begins to plop. Add ground walnuts, pecans, or hickory nuts and sweeten to taste with maple sugar or syrup. Serve hot. You can add a little butter as long as you let the children know that butter came with the Europeans.

Grape Dumplings

Bring 48 ounces of grape juice to a slow boil. Add one-quarter cup of sugar. Drop in dumplings. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Dumplings: Mix 1-1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder and one-half teaspoon salt. Cut in 1 tablespoon shortening and mix with three-quarters cup of milk. Turn onto floured board, knead, roll out thin, cut into 1-inch squares and drop one at a time into boiling juice.

 

The contents of Herron's Whisper was created by Rena Dennison.