Bean Balls
Ingredients:
2 cups brown beans
4 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
(soda is used in place of lye water)
Directions:
Boil beans in salted water until tender.
Put cornmeal, flour and soda in large mixing bowl. Mix well. Add boiled
beans and some of the juice to the cornmeal/flour mixture to form a stiff
dough. Roll in balls and drop into pot of boiling hot water. Let cook for
30 minutes at a slow boil.
Bean Bread (tu-ya ga-du)
Cook about 2 quarts of brown beans until
thick and soupy, add salt to your taste Add 1/4 cup of oil or two tablespoons
of pure grease.
When beans are done and still boiling,
place in a bowl 4-8 cups of yellow corn meal and 1/2 cup of oil, stir this
until well incorporated, pour the boiling beans into the corn meal about
4-6 cups
or more. Pour into a well oiled pan and
bake in 350 degree oven. When it is done, cut into squares and enjoy.
Cormeal Cookies (Se-lu I-sa U-ga-na-s-da)
Cream together:
3/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup sugar
Add the following
ingredients until smooth:
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
Add and mix well:
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp. baking
powered
1/4 tsp. salt
Optional:
1/2 cup raisins
Drop dough from tablespoon on a greased
cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes until lightly browned.
Makes
about 1 1/2 dozen.
Crawfish - (Ge-Dv-Nv) -
1KG
Catch crawfish by baiting them with groundhog
meat or buttermilk. Pinch off tails and legs to use. Parboil, remove hulls
and fry the little meat that is left. When crisp, it is ready to eat. Crawfish
can also be used in a soup or stew after it is fried.
Cabbage - (U-S-Ge-Wi) -
QC1+
Directions: Wilt cabbage in a small amount
of grease (go-i). Add some pieces of green peppers and cook until cabbage
turns red. Serve with cornbread (se-lu ga-du).
Corn and Beans - (Se-Lu A-Su-Yi Tsu-Ya)
- 7RaI|{b
Directions: Skin flour corn with lye and
cook. Cook colored beans. Put the cooked corn and beans together and cook
some more. Add pumpkin if you like, cooking until pumpkin is done.
Add to this a mixture of cornmeal, beaten
walnuts and hickory nuts, and enough molasses to sweeten. Cook this in
an iron pot until the meal is done. Eat fresh or just after it begins to
sour. This will not keep too long after it begins to sour unless the weather
is cold.
Cornmeal Gravy (selu'si asusdi)
Fry some meat (about 4 pcs.side meat)
Have enough grease to cover cornmeal. Add about 1/2 cup of meal (you may
wanna salt this a bit, unless you like bland) Brown the meal in grease
until light brown. Add 2 1/2 cups of milk, stir and let boil until thick.
Serve hot over any kind of bread. (This was my elisi's favorite poured
on top of hoe cakes)
Cornmeal Mush - (Selu'sa Anista)
- a%C/
Corn meal
boiling water
(1 part corn meal to 4 parts water)
salt to taste
Put water in saucepan. Cover and let
it become boiling hot over the fire; then add a tablespoon of salt. Take
off the light scum from the top. Take a handful of the cornmeal with the
left hand and a pudding stick in the right (or vise versa if you're a southpaw);
then with the stick, stir the water around and by degrees let fall the
meal. When one handful is exhausted, refill it; continue to stir and add
meal until it is as thick as you can stir easily, or until the stick will
stand in it. Stir it awhile longer. Let the fire be gentle.
When it is sufficiently cooked which will
be in half an hour, it will bubble or buff up. Turn it into a deep basin.
Good eaten cold or hot, with milk or butter and syrup or sugar, or with
meat and gravy or it may be sliced when cold and fried.
Dried Apples - (Unikaya) -Q%nb
Peel and quarter ripe apples, or slice
and dry in the sun. Cook the dried apples until done. If the cooked apple
needs to be thickened, add cornmeal and cook until meal is done.
Dried Corn Soup
Ingredients:
1 ear dried blue and white or other corn,
removed from the cob
7 cups water (ama)
1 (2"x1") strip fat back, sliced
5 oz. dried beef
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper (do
qua yo di)
Directions:
1. Soak the corn in 2 cups water for
48 hours.
2. Place the corn and its soaking water
in a large saucepan. Add the remaining water and the fat back, and simmer,
covered, for about 3 hours and 50 minutes or until the corn is tender but
not soft. 3. Mix in the dried beef and pepper, and simmer, stir for 10
minutes more.
Fried Squash Bread
1 cup Corn meal
2 Summer squash -- diced
1 Egg
Water
1/4 cup Buttermilk
Cook squash in water until soft; leave
3/4 c. water in pot. Combine other ingredients with squash and water; mix
together. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.
Ga-Na-S-Da-Tsi (Sassafras Tea)
Ingredients
Red Sassafras roots
Water
Directions: To make a tea, boil a few
pieces of the root in water until
it is the desired strength. Sweeten with
honey if desired. Serve hot or
cold.
Note: Gather and wash
the roots of the red sassafras. Do this in the spring
before the sap begins
to rise. Store for future use. Some natural food stores
carry sassafrass root
in a dried form. It will resemble wood chips (the kind
used when barbequeing).
The "store bought" variety work just as well.
Sassafras tea tastes
like watered down rootbeer and is really very good.
Ganuge - sY1
Directions: Crack thin shelled hickory
nuts. Beat hull and all in the corn beater until it can be rolled into
a ball. Make whatever size balls are convenient to use. Pour boiling water
over this to make a thick gruel. Pour the gruel over corn and beans that
have been cooked separately, then mixed together.
Greens Salad - (Guhitligi) - W@)!
Ingredients:
Sweet grass (Oo-Ga-Na-S-Di) - QshC*
Old Field Creases (Oo-Li-Si) - Q#&
Ramps (Wa-S-Di)
- vC*
Angelica (Wa-Ne-Gi-Duhn) - v5!K
Poke (Tla-Ye-De) - Z88
Directions: Parboil, salt, then cooked
some more with grease (go-i). Serve hot.
Grape Dumplings
Boil 1 gallon possum grapes,
using just enough water to cover. Strain through a clean sack
(or you can cheat and just use Welch's grape juice) *smile*
Knead plain flour and some grape juice
as you would when making bread dough. (About 1 cup of juice to 5 cups of
flour.) Roll this out on a floured dough board very thin and cut into strips
and drop the dough strips into the boiling grape juice. You may put in
1/2 cup of sugar to sweeten.
Gv-nv-s-dv-tli (spicewood tea)
Ingredients:
Small twigs of Spicewood
Directions
Boil twigs in water and serve hot. Sweeten
if desired. Molasses or honey makes the best sweetening. Gather spicewood
twigs in the spring when the buds first appear.
Gv-no-he-nv - (Hominy Corn Drink)
Ingredients:
Corn, field dried or parched
Wood ash lye
Water
Directions
Shell the corn (if still on the cob),
and soak the kernels in wood ash lye until the skin can be removed (slipped).Remove
from the lye and rinse with clear water. Drain.
Beat the corn in the corn beater (ko-no-na)
until it is the size of hominy. Sift the meal from the larger corn particles.
Cook the larger particles in water until they are done. Thicken with a
little meal. Drink this hot or wait until it sours and drink it cold.The
drink may be kept for quite a while unless the weather is very hot.This
was a customary drink to serve to friends who dropped by for a visit.
Huckleberry Bread (gadu guwa)
2 cups self rising flour
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1 cup milk
1 tea. vanilla
2 cups berries (Huckleberry or blueberry)
Cream eggs, butter and sugar. Add
flour, milk and vanilla. Sprinkle flour on berries to prevent them
from going to the bottom. Add berries. Bake at 350
for 40 minutes.
Leather Breeches - (Anikayosvhi Tsuya)
- a%nzJ@{b
Ingredients
1 pound fresh green beans, washed
2 quarts water
1/4 pound salt pork, diced
2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
heavy thread
darning needle
Directions: Snap the ends off the beans
and string on heavy thread with needle. Hang in a sunny place to dry for
about 2 months.
To cook: Soak beans for 1 hour in the
two quarts of water. Add the salt pork, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer slowly, for 3 hours. Add more water if needed.
Potato Soup - (Nu-nv Oo-ga-ma) -YGQsg
Directions:
Peel white potatoes and cut them into
small pieces. Boil in water with an onion or two until potatoes and onions
mash easily. After mashing, add some fresh milk and reheat the mixture.
Add salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
Ramps - (Wa-s-di) - vC*
Directions: Gather young ramps soon after
they come up. Parboil them, wash and fry in a little grease (go-i). Meal
may be added if you wish. They may be cooked without being parboiled, or
even eaten raw (if the eater is not social minded! *smile*)
Red Sumach Drink - (Qua-lo-ga) - jrs
Shell berries off and gently rub between
the palms of your hands, being careful not to crush the berries but only
the spines, drop into water, strain, sweeten to taste and chill.
Cherokee Succotash - (Iyatsuyadisuyi
Selu) - ~b{~*I|7R
Directions: Shell some corn and skin it
with wood ashes lye. Cook corn and beans separately, then together. If
desired, you may put pieces of pumpkin in. Be sure to put the pumpkin in
early enough to get done before the pot is removed from the fire.
Swamp Potatoes - (Tlawatsuhi'anehi Nunv)
- Zv{@a5@YG
Directions: Gather and wash swamp potatoes.
Bake in oven or in ashes until they are done. Beat the cooked potatoes
in the corn beater until they are like any other meal. Use as meal is used.
(During winter famines, many Cherokees
had no other meal except that made from the swamp potatoes.)
Sweet Corn Mixture - (Sedi Tsuya Selu)
- 7*{b7R
Directions: Skin flour corn by putting
it in lye. Cook the corn until it is done. Add beans and continue cooking
until the beans are done. Add pumpkin and cook until it is done, then add
walnut (se di) meal and a little corn meal. Add a little sugar or molasses
if you'd like. Cook until the corn meal is done.
Oo-ni-na-su-ga Oo-ga-ma (Possum Grape
Drink)
Ingredients:
Possum grapes, dried *
Water
Corn meal
* Directions:
Gather ripe possum grapes - the kind that are still sour after they ripen
when the frost has fallen on them. Hang up for winter use.
To prepare: Shell off the grapes from
the stems, wash, and stew them in water. When they are done, mash in the
water they were cooked in. Let this sit until the seed settle, then strain,
reserving liquid. Put the juice back on the fire and and bring to a boil.
Add a little cornmeal to thicken the juice. Continue cooking until the
meal is done. Remove from the fire and drink hot or cold. Sweeten, if desired.
Uwaga (Oo-Wa-Ga - Old Field Apricot Drink)
Gather old field apricots
(field apricots are the fruit of the
passion flower)
Directions:
Hull out the seed and pulp, and put on
to boil, discarding skins. Add a tiny bit of soda to make the seeds separate
from the pulp. Squash out the pulp, straining the mixture through a cloth.
Drink hot.
Wanegidv (Wah-neh-gee-Duh)
- v5!K
Directions: Pick when tender, parboil,
fry, and serve with eggs and bread or just bread.
