On the fourth Thursday of every November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Airports and roads are jammed. More than 40 million Americans travel from state to state to celebrate the holiday. On Thanksgiving Day, Americans give thanks for the blessings of the past year. They feast, celebrate, and play games.

My firend, Lisa, who is hosting a large thanksgiving dinner explains, “Everybody in the family: my two sisters, my two brothers and all of their families, we have the traditional turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and vegetables, all the cakes and pies after the turkey dinner. We usually eat kind of late. I think a lot of people here have their turkey dinner at around 3pm in the afternoon or so, earlier in the day. But we always have it a little later like 5pm or so, then dad watches the (American football) game.”

Makes me wonder what they are really celebrating?

It is our tradition not to celebrate this American holiday as part of the cultural norm.  Rather we participate in this day as a day of mourning and honor for those who have gone before us and those who gave of themselves, so that the puritans could prosper.

In our house, we light a smudge early in the morning and fast all day, as we prepare a feast of traditional foods such as turkey, salmon, moose sausage and wild rice, wild mushrooms, corn soup, corn bread, squash, succotash, fresh cranberry sauce, and a dessert with blueberries.  Blueberries are a staple at any feast for the Northeastern peoples.  Blueberries represent the ancestors at the feast; much like the Irish/Celts who would use apples, or the Mohawk people who use strawberries.

The smudge is kept going all day, much like a sacred fire and as the day wears on, there maybe some drumming and singing along with the conversation and the family effort to make the feast.  Everyone participates…even the littlest ones.

When everything is ready, we all come to the table and the spirit plates are made.  As the plates are passed, each person at the table places a little bit of each type of food that we have for the feast.  We do four plates, one for each of the four directions.

As the plates are being filled, my husband gives the teaching about the spirit plates.  “We make the spirit plates in honor of all our ancestors who have gone before us, so that they will not go hungry in the spirit world.”  The youngest ones of the family proudly stand ready to carry the plates out to the four directions.  The water glass is filled and passed around, as my husband also gives this teaching, each person takes a drink from the glass, leaving it half full.  “Water is our life force, without water we cannot live and we drink for the ancestor, so that they will live on in us.”

The little ones proudly take the plates outside to the four directions and place them upon the ground, so that the ancestors may eat with us.  They leave the glass of water too.

It is time for us to eat now and we all settle down for a good meal with much conversation and stories about ancestors and family who are gone from this world, however still remain each year to celebrate with us.

The cliche Thanksgiving portrayal of Native Americans and Pilgrims sharing a table together perpetuates that false idea, as well as another mistaken notion - that Native Americans celebrate the historical feast between Pilgrims and Indians. They do not.

For Indians, that feast is a symbol of the betrayal, of the killing and of the forced removal from their homelands that followed.

Many Native Americans struggle with the truth hidden in the American tradition of Thanksgiving - a reality that is nothing to be thankful for.

While most people with Native American heritage still celebrate Thanksgiving, it is a misconception that Native Americans and Europeans came together for a happy feast.

The myth of the coming together of the pilgrims and the Native American is a whole separate issue because originally there was very good contact; but it didn’t stay that way for very long. Fundamental cultural and land use issues divided the two people from the beginning. Europeans at the time thought they had entitlement to land that wasn’t necessarily theirs. The notion that Europeans had a God-given right to American land was a foreign concept, which was resisted violently by Native Americans.
The truth about Thanksgiving is that Europeans truly thought they were entitled to take land.  And they did so by genocide, poison or by deliberately spreading disease. There was a population loss of 90 percent after European arrival.

It is important to mention that while there are many conflictions with the holiday, many Native Americans still participate in it for a variety of reasons, including the fact that most now come from mixed-race backgrounds.

Because of their mixed heritage, some Native Americans celebrate the tradition with their families, because it is a modern American holiday, but others protest the holiday because much of the Native American history involved is nothing to truly be thankful for.

Yet, when the whole country is celebrating, it’s hard to be angry and not participate in taking part in family time.

It’s called Thanksgiving - giving thanks for what we are thankful for, and regardless of what history tells us, we all still have things to be thankful for.  In particular, our ancestors who have brought us life.

The pilgrims were rescued in 1620 from starvation and severe weather by a Wampanoag Indian man called “Tisquantum” or “Squanto,” who had learned English after traveling to England with explorer John Weymouth.

He brought them deer meat and beaver skins, taught them to cultivate corn and other vegetables and how to build Native American-style houses. He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine.
By fall, things were much better for the pilgrims and they decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune. Pilgrim leader Capt. Miles Standish invited Squanto and the Wampanoag leader, Massasoit, and their families to the feast, but were overwhelmed by the sheer size of Indian families. It became clear to Massasoit that the pilgrims had not expected the 90-plus people who came to feast and he ordered more food to be brought. Thus it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food for the three-day celebration.
A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Standish giving the pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old village once stood to build their new town of Plymouth.
The European population grew and the Indians’ help was not needed, mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened. The pilgrims displayed intolerance toward the Indian religion and within a few years the children of the people who ate together at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be called King Phillip’s War.

Though Native Americans of the region today known as New England share similar languages and cultures, known as Eastern Algonquian, they are not one political or social group. Rather, they comprised and still comprise many sub-groups. For example, the Pequots and Mohegans live in Connecticut, the Wampanoag reside in southeastern Massachusetts, while the Pocumtucks dwelt in the middle Connecticut River Valley near today’s Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Like the elders of other Native communities, Algonquian elders have traditionally transmitted important cultural information to the younger generations orally. This knowledge, imparted in the form of stories, includes the group’s history, information on origins, beliefs and moral lessons. Oral tradition communicates rituals, political tenets, and organizational information. It is a vital element in maintaining the group’s unity and sense of identity.

Creation stories, for example, help to define for the listener a sense of how human beings relate to the Creator and to the world. A creation story of the Pocumtucks explains the origin of the Pocumtuck Range, located in present-day Deerfield, and Sunderland, Massachusetts. The story tells of a huge lake in which lived a rapacious giant beaver. The people complained to the god Hobomok that the beaver was attacking them and consuming all of the local resources. Hobomok decided to kill the beaver. Following a titanic struggle, Hobomok vanquished the beaver with a club fashioned from an enormous tree. The body of the beaver sank into the lake, turned to stone, and formed the Pocumtuck Range.

Such stories and their settings establish the Native American presence on this land from time immemorial by relating how the Creator placed the First Peoples in their traditional homelands. Homelands are stable and permanent cultural and physical landscapes where Native nations have lived, and in some cases, continue to live to the present day.  Creation stories thus reflect the central place their relationship with the land occupies in the culture and history of Native peoples. Certain sites within a homeland might hold special meaning and thus serve as important gathering places or focal points. For example, in the Pocumtuck homeland, Peskeompscut Falls (today known as Turners Falls) served as an important fishing area and meeting ground. Wequamps (Mt. Sugarloaf) is the focal point of the creation story that describes the origin of the Pocumtuck range.

The Connecticut River Valley was a vital crossroads for Native peoples of the Northeast. Today, the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts lies at the heart of the Pocumtuck people’s homeland. Pocumtucks were part of a network of Algonquian communities in the middle Connecticut River Valley. Settlements lined the middle Connecticut River. In addition to the Pocumtuck, the Norwottuck homeland lay near present-day Northampton and Hadley, the Sokokis near Northfield, the Agawams around Agawam, Woronocos near West Springfield, and the Nipmuc homeland lay in central Massachusetts. These peoples were linked culturally, linguistically, politically, and through kinship.

These Algonquian communities together constituted a formidable power in Southern New England.

Numerous trails and waterways connected these settlements with each other, facilitating intricate and extensive trade networks. Algonquians also traded with other peoples living to the west, north and south. The fertile soil and plentiful game fostered a prosperous society that enjoyed a robust economy and a stable political structure.

Eastern Algonquian people resided in different parts of their homeland at different times according to their needs.  They often lived in smaller groupings connected by a network of trails or waterways. Environmental rhythms, kinship networks and ceremonial requirements together formed a calendar that regulated their movements. For example, a group might move to a location nearby to clear new land for their fields once agricultural land became exhausted. They also often located near good hunting or fishing areas. Groups at times might break up into smaller family units that would leave a village to hunt in other parts of their homeland. People also relocated to more protected areas with the colder weather.

Agriculture flourished in the milder climate of Southern New England, supporting larger concentrations of Native people than the harsher northern region. Archaeological evidence suggests that Native people of Southern New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island) began growing corn over one thousand years ago. In addition to this staple, they cultivated many other plants, including kidney beans, squash, Jerusalem artichoke, and tobacco. The shorter growing season of northern New England led Algonquians living in this region (Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) to trade with groups to the south to supplement their food supply.

Like their counterparts in many Native nations throughout the continent, Algonquian women worked together to cultivate common fields, as well as harvesting, preserving and preparing food. They also helped to construct their homes and produced many household accessories. Algonquian men hunted, fished, made tools and protected their communities. Working communally and dividing responsibilities along age and gender lines enabled Native groups to accomplish many necessary tasks such as building canoes and homes. Significantly, a good deal of children’s work and play revolved around activities that helped them to develop the communal and physical skills they would need as adults. Such activities included keeping crows out of the cornfields and gathering nuts and berries.

Sustained contact with Europeans beginning in the fifteenth century subjected lifeways established over centuries or even millennia to severe stress. Native Americans have struggled over the last several centuries to retain and sustain their relationship with the land in the face of changing economic relations, rapidly changing political alliances, demographic catastrophe, and warfare.

Much of the early contact between Europeans and Native peoples revolved around trade. By 1600, French, Dutch and English traders frequented the northeast coast of North America trading metal, glass and cloth for beaver pelts. A reciprocity-based system of exchange characterized initial trade relations. Successful trade depended on good relationships between traders and Native groups. These practices superficially resembled pre-existing exchange patterns among area Native peoples. It quickly became apparent, however, that these new relationships did not really replicate traditional trading practices. They lacked the social and cultural assumptions that provided structure and meaning to the old exchange patterns.

The presence and agenda of these new trading partners generated far-reaching consequences. Native groups heavily involved in trade with Europeans altered their living patterns to better position themselves to deal with the newcomers. That trade placed disproportionate attention on hunting for lucrative beaver pelts in place of traditional subsistence hunting. Native traders became increasingly reliant on European trade goods, adapting them to their own traditional uses. Competition among groups for a rapidly diminishing beaver population increased. The power balance shifted in favor of groups and individuals with connections to traders and European goods.

Trade with Europeans generated demographic as well as economic and political consequences. Native people used preexisting trade routes and communications networks to acquire the beaver pelts European traders prized. They received in exchange desirable trade goods such as textiles, various metals and firearms. In this way, European traders’ goods penetrated far into inland North America. Old World diseases traveled with those goods, triggering what one historian has termed a “demographic catastrophe.” Before European contact, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere lived isolated from many Old World diseases. They thus did not develop immunities to diseases such as measles and smallpox that plagued other parts of the world. European contact through trading set off widespread epidemics. Old World diseases reduced Native populations in some areas by up to ninety percent.  The cultural consequences of this demographic disaster were no less devastating than its economic or political effects. Astoundingly high mortality rates seriously compromised the oral transmission of collective wisdom and culture.

Early and seemingly limited coastal trade contacts with Europeans thus weakened and depopulated many Native nations years before European settlers arrived. The arrival of the English settlers in Massachusetts by 1620 brought into play another element into Native/European relations: colonization. As with earlier trading ventures, the Companies that funded colonizing ventures like the one at Plymouth also sought to establish lucrative trade relations with Native peoples. At the same time, English assumptions surrounding colonization introduced a new and ultimately incompatible component into European/Native relations. Unlike individual traders, English families came to establish communities and settle permanently on Native lands. The relatively positive relations that characterized early trade relations between European traders and Native Americans quickly deteriorated. Cultural clashes and disputes over land escalated as English towns grew and population pressures intensified colonists’ demand for more land.

The English settlement of Springfield is an example of how first European trader and then settlement affected pre-existing Native American trade networks and political relations. Settled in 1636, Springfield was the first English settlement in the middle Connecticut River Valley. Englishman William Pynchon and his son John quickly established a lucrative fur trade with local Native peoples. Native hunters traded furs for European products, while the English sold their furs back to England for high profits. By the 1650s, however, hunters had exhausted the fur supply of the region. Tensions between Native communities flared into open hostility as hunters traveled further into territories outside their homelands to find beavers. Warfare between the Kanien’kehaka (Mohawks) of the Haudenosaunee from Eastern New York and the Pocumtucks in 1664 pushed many Pocumtucks from the central area of their homeland.

When they could no longer supply beaver furs to European traders, Native people lost bargaining power and trading leverage. Land became the only resource Europeans were willing to accept in payment for European goods and to pay off debts accumulated through the English credit system. Land sales escalated and English towns began to line the Massachusetts portion of the Connecticut River between 1636 and 1685.

The ideological reasoning of the English who displaced Native Americans from their homelands reveals the radically different and ultimately irreconcilable worldviews of these two societies. English settlers viewed the land as a wilderness void of civilization. Where the English saw “virgin land”, they also saw God’s mandate to appropriate and “civilize” it. John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, explained the right of the English to take Indian land by claiming “[t]hat which is common to all is proper to none. This savage people ruleth over many lands without title or property; for they enclose no ground, neither have they cattle to maintain it, but remove their dwellings as they have occasion, or as they can prevail against their neighbors”.

Native American movement through their homelands was a sophisticated response to the change of seasons and the location of natural resources. In contrast, English society had evolved over centuries a sedentary agrarian culture and an economy based upon individual land ownership. For English people in this period, private ownership and permanent villages were evidence of true and appropriate land use. From their perspective, “New World” land appeared to be empty land.   With only rare exceptions, most English people could not recognize the way in which Native people used their land in accordance with their needs, cultures and belief systems.

In Native societies, land was home and communally held. People could not alienate the land any more than they could sell air or water. In contrast, individual land ownership conferred wealth and status in European society. Land was a commodity that could indeed be bought and sold. Having never before “sold” land, Native people in the Connecticut Valley may not have initially understood the European interpretation and consequences of land transactions.

Whether or not Native leaders could or intended to sell land to the English is debatable. Sachems were Native American leaders who commanded considerable religious and economic authority over a community. Evidence exists that some Sachems dispensed land use rights to various tribal members and negotiated treaties with other groups. To alienate land completely, however, may have been beyond the authority of any one individual. Some of the language in early deeds suggests that Native representatives viewed the agreement as a traditional transfer of land use. That is, in the first land sales, Native peoples acted as though they were selling use-rights, but not absolute ownership of the land itself.

For example, in 1671, soon after the Pocumtuck conflict with the Kanien’kehaka, Springfield land broker and trader John Pynchon brought land proprietors from Dedham (outside of Boston.) These Dedham proprietors purchased, surveyed, and laid out part of the Pocumtuck homeland for a new English town. The events and the language surrounding this land transaction reveal just how great was the cultural impasse between the English and the Native Americans on this issue. The Pocumtuck sachem Chauk reserved Pocumtuck rights to hunt, fish, plant, and gather wood on the very land he was “selling.” As in other early deeds, the document included land-use clauses enabling Native people to retain use of and contact with their ancestral lands. The language of this and other early deeds suggests that what Native people believed they were selling to English settlers was the right to plant and set up their homes on that land.

As time passed, the English definition of land ownership overwhelmed Native interests and interpretations. Towns and individual settlers increasingly enforced their legal understanding of the deeds as transferring to them an exclusive right to the land. New landowners accordingly sought to prevent Native “trespassers.” Such interpretations forced Native groups to adapt to English life-ways in order to remain in homelands where English had built towns.

The rapid decline of the fur trade and English geographic expansion heightened tensions between Native people and the settlers. Up and down the valley, unhealthy patterns of unequal and discriminatory relations intensified between English communities and displaced Natives.  Colonial governments fined Native Americans for breaking Puritan religious laws such as traveling on the Christian Sabbath. The English further strained relations by selling Native prisoners into slavery or forcing captured Native children to work as farm laborers.  The law afforded some protections to Native people only so long as they conformed to European standards and lifestyles such as dressing like Europeans and cutting their hair.

Native Americans throughout New England experienced removal and restriction from their land and the mandated compliance to English laws and culture. Mistrust, resentment and anger grew. In 1675, armed conflict broke out in the east among the Wampanoag of southeastern Massachusetts. Other Native groups quickly followed suit.

The uprising that became known as Metacom’s War, or King Philip’s War, involved over 11,000 Native allies from Native communities on both sides of Narragansett Bay (in southeast Massachusetts and Rhode Island) northwest through central Massachusetts to the Connecticut Valley.

The war produced terror and tragedy on both sides. Thousands of colonists and Indians met terrible deaths. Both sides killed defenseless men, women and children. New Englanders lived in a constant state of terror for the next one and a half years. It seemed as though only a few seacoast cities would survive. Panic-stricken colonists abandoned outlying farms and settlements and crowded into garrisons. In September 1675, Native American forces ambushed a convoy of farmers from Deerfield escorted by soldiers from eastern Massachusetts transporting grain south for safekeeping.  The ambush was in retaliation for earlier killings of Natives, which included  women and children.  Sixty men died in what became known as “The Bloody Brook Massacre.”  Hostages were taken to replace the lives lost by Native villages.

Meanwhile, Native Americans in southern New England suffered devastating losses. On May 18, 1676, Captain William Turner led an attack on Peskeompscut Falls (Turner’s Falls) on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. Approximately 300 Pocumtuck, Norwottuck, Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Nipmuc people were encamped on the falls building up food supplies after a winter of near starvation. Over 240 mostly unarmed Native people died in this attack.  The English renamed the Falls to commemorate what was to them a notable victory. The slaughter at Peskeompskut Falls demoralized the Native people and greatly weakened their resistance. Lost battles in the spring, disease, and impending starvation among the Native people, brought Metacom’s War to a virtual halt. The Native attempt to push English settlement off their homelands in southern New England dissolved in 1676.

As overt Indian resistance collapsed, the English began to “round up the hostile Indians,” executing some and selling others into slavery in the West Indies. The Pocumtucks, Sokokis, Norwottucks and Agawams of the middle Connecticut Valley could no longer live safely in their homelands. Although some stayed, most fled for their lives. Some Native people of the Connecticut Valley took refuge in Schaghticoke, outside of Albany, New York. A Mahican community established by Governor Andros of New York, Schaghticoke provided sanctuary for Algonquians from the Connecticut River Valley area.

Other groups eventually followed their Abenaki and Sokoki allies to live at Odanak (St. Francis) in Quebec. Odanak had not yet become a French Jesuit mission when it began welcoming Native people fleeing from the aftereffects of King Philip’s War. Pocumtucks, Norwottucks, Sokokis, and Pennacooks were among the refugees. This mixture of Native peoples at Odanak eventually took on a “Western Abenaki” identity, since the Abenaki from what is now Vermont and New Hampshire once formed a majority of the population. Still other Connecticut Valley Natives joined allies at Pennacook in New Hampshire and Maine where forceful resistance continued.

As people from different groups came to Odanak and Schaghticoke to live, they maintained close relationships with kin that had relocated to other refugee communities. The persecution and loss these communities of Algonkian exiled had experienced at English hands kept resentment alive. These shared resentments contributed to the willingness among northern communities to participate with the French in future wars against the English.

In the years following Metacom’s War, the Connecticut River Valley remained a crossroads for Native peoples of the Northeast. The former Native residents of the valley, though living largely in New York and Quebec, maintained their connection to their ancestral land in the Connecticut Valley.  Deerfield, lying on the northwest edge of English settlement in New England, was on a common path that formed the middle ground between New England and New France. That there remained no permanently settled Native American communities fed a popular misconception among non-Native residents that the Indians of this region had “disappeared.” In fact, Native Americans remained in the Connecticut River Valley. They were living in the area, visiting friends and families who stayed in the valley, hunting in their traditional lands, trading with the English settlers, and passing through on the way to other villages. In this way, Native peoples maintained their connection with their homelands, a connection that persists to the present day.

Ana-Sku’tee

Planting Month

We, the old settlers here in council with the late emigrants, they
are perfectly friendly toward us…..we have full confidence they will
receive you with all friendship.

SEQUOYAH

May 1 - Daily Feast

A country road in May hums with activity. Bees comb the clover
fields for nectar. Buttercups and dayflowers open to the sun and a
mockingbird sets out to mimic every sound it has ever heard - even the
baby chick. Wild onions and pink verbena share the space and the
buttery blooms of buffalo peas nod in spring breezes. Only now the air
has warmed to the sun and the plants and leaves of oaks grow so much
overnight that the sky closes in like a cocoon. Now is the time to slow
down and enjoy the minute changes as they come hourly, the scents, the
roadsides filled with new plants, and the green hills and valleys. They
come quickly, the di ga ne tli yv sdi, changes, that sometimes mature
before we see the difference. If we are not careful, our clouded
thought and vision shut it out until we have missed the best part.

~ This brings rest to me heart. I feel like a leaf after a storm, when the wind is still. ~

Legends and Folklore of the Northern Lights

The aurora borealis has intrigued people from ancient times, and still
does today. The Eskimos and Indians of North America have many stories
to explain these northern lights.

One story is reported by the explorer Ernest W. Hawkes in his book, The Labrador Eskimo:

Evil Thing

The Point Barrow Eskimos were the only Eskimo group who considered the
aurora an evil thing. In the past they carried knives to keep it away
from them.

Omen of War

The Fox Indians, who lived in Wisconsin, regarded the light as an omen
of war and pestilence. To them the lights were the ghosts of their
slain enemies who, restless for revenge, tried to rise up again.

Dancing Spirits

The Salteaus Indians of eastern Canada and the Kwakiutl and Tlingit of
Southeastern Alaska interpreted the northern lights as the dancing of
human spirits. The Eskimos who lived on the lower Yukon River believed
that the aurora was the dance of animal spirits, especially those of
deer, seals, salmon and beluga.

Game of Ball

Most Eskimo groups have a myth of the northern lights as the spirits of
the dead playing ball with a walrus head or skull. The Eskimos of
Nunivak Island had the opposite idea, of walrus spirits playing with a
human skull.

Spirits of Children

The east Greenland Eskimos thought that the northern lights were the
spirits of children who died at birth. The dancing of the children
round and round caused the continually moving streamers and draperies
of the aurora.

Fires in the North

The Makah Indians of Washington State thought the lights were
fires in the Far North, over which a tribe of dwarfs, half the length
of a canoe paddle and so strong they caught whales with their hands,
boiled blubber.

Stew Pots

The Mandan of North Dakota explained the northern lights as fires over
which the great medicine men and warriors of northern nations simmered
their dead enemies in enormous pots. The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin
regarded the lights as torches used by great, friendly giants in the
north, to spear fish at night.

Creator Reminder

An Algonquin myth tells of when Nanahbozho, creator of the Earth, had
finished his task of the creation, he traveled to the north, where he
remained. He built large fires, of which the northern lights are the
reflections, to remind his people that he still thinks of them.

* Pictured here is Rapure Pie and Baked Apple.

The first Acadians to settle in Canada were mostly farmers, soldiers and craftspeople. Many came from rural areas of mid-west France and brought with them the agrarian and culinary traditions of their native France. Their diet resolved around the agricultural products that they brought with them from France and those introduced to them by the Amerindians such as, seasonal fruits of nature, fishing and hunting. During the Spring and Summer months, wild game and fish provided settlers with a steady source of protein, while the family gardens provided peas and a large variety of other vegetables.

Among the agricultural products that the Acadians adopted from the Amerindians were corn, beans, and squash, known to the Amerindians as “The Three Sisters”. These products were the result of the companion-planting of corn, beans and squash each beneficial to the other. The sturdy corn stalk gave the beans vine support; the beans produced nitrogen for the corn and the squash nines; shaded the grounds, keeping down weeds and conserving moisture in the soil. Not only did the Amerindians plant the Three Sisters crop together, but they believed that these vegetables were supposed to be eaten together. One dish that resulted in this concept was SUCCOTASH.

The Acadian farmers found the land in Acadia, protected by mountain ridges and suitable for growing wheat, buckwheat, corn, turnips, cabbage, potatoes and beans. They grew fruit such as pears, apples, plums, and cherries. They supplemented their diet with wild game such as moose, bear, rabbit, partridge, geese, ducks, teal, plover, pigeons and marsh birds and they fished for cod, salmon, shad, bass, eel, smelt and a variety of shell fish. Staples of the Acadian diet included herring, cod, potatoes, pork (mostly in the form of salt pork) and local grains made into pancakes (plogues), biscuits and bread.

During the months of August, the Acadians harvested wheat, barley and rye… and transported their grain to local mills for grinding. Although the Acadians raised a lot of cattle, sheep and pigs, they did not eat a lot of meat, especially veal or any other young animal. In Autumn, the most surplus livestock were allocated for trade, or sold outright. They slaughtered their animals only when they were no longer fit to use as work animals or able to provide them with milk, eggs, wool etc.. When they did, the choicer cuts of meat were sold, Some beef and pork was consumed immediately, but most of the meat salted for use during the approaching Winter

The Acadians had an affinity for salt pork. Turnips and cabbages were staple of their Winter diet. The cabbages were allowed to remain in the snow-covered field until they were gathered in small amounts for immediate consumption. The turnips were harvested and stored in cellars.

A portion of the apple crop was made into cider. Alcohol was available (both imported and smuggled rum) and home-made wine and cider however, the beverage preferred by the Acadians, was spruce-sprout beer.

Like in other areas of French Canada, some of the recipes brought to Acadia from France generations ago, are still made exactly as they were in Europe. Others were adapted to the foods and the way of life in Acadia, resulting in a combination of true French cuisine, Acadian-French alterations and many dishes that were born in Acadia and had never been served in any other country.

Traditional recipes evolved mainly from the use of foods that could be stored for the long cold Winters and every home maintained a supply of dried salt codfish, potatoes and salted pork fat and, a favourite dish was a combination of these ingredients. Some other favourites were GROSSE SOUPE (a hearty soup of beef shank, onions, herbs, beans, peas, green beans, cabbage, turnips, corn, carrots and potatoes; RAPURE (a baked casserole of a mixture of salt pork, pork fat, onions, grated and mashed potatoes); and MIOCHE AU NAVEAU (mashed potatoes and turnips). Buttered bread spread with molasses often served as dessert. Pastries and cakes were reserved for Sundays, but dishes such as pancakes (plogues) and poutines (dumplings) would be considered ’special’ desserts today. Potatoes provided the staple of the Acadian diet and, boiled in meat or fish stock, made a wholesome and satisfying dish called FRICOT.

They supplemented their diets with wild game such as black bear, moose, snowshoe hare (rabbits) and partridges, Canada goose, ducks, plover marsh birds and the now extinct passenger pigeon. They also fished for salt water cod, salmon, shad, stripped bass, eel, smelt and a variety of shell fish.

Following the expulsion of the Acadians, those who escaped the deportation and those who returned and resettled mostly along the coastal areas, found themselves in a completely different environment that they had been accustomed… isolated culturally, the Acadians had to respond to new and different circumstances, forcing them to make the most of what they had. Unlike their forebears who had continued agrarian traditions brought from France, the resettled Acadians living by the sea, lost their agricultural and culinary traditions and put new ones in their place. By necessity, they learned to tap the rich resources of the sea. Over time, the struggle to put food on the table developed into a unique culinary tradition and imaginative response to the land and the sea.

Unlike the staples of the Acadian diet, the gaspereau and shad which served as important secondary sources of protein, required less cooking but higher temperatures. Hence, fish were usually fried in oil… probably bear oil (much to the chagrin of French travelers) because butter was practically unknown in Acadia.

On the whole, Acadian cooking was uncomplicated, keeping the number of ingredients to a minimum and the method of preparation simple. In fact, many dishes were a one-pot meal, such as FRICOTS and CHOWDERS. If there is one dish that could be called “typically Acadian”, it would be FRICOT, which is a soup containing potatoes and meat (usually chicken), fish and/or seafood. Although a fricot may vary from one region to another, to this day the dish will always have the same basic ingredients… meat and potatoes in a hearty broth, with dumplings called poutines or grand-pères. Fricots are rich in calories and, with fresh bread… “a meal in themselves”! Fricots and poutine rapées continue to be a central part of today’s Acadian cuisine, together with meat pies and paté à la rapures… followed by poutines a trous.

Ordinary meals did not usually include a dessert and the main meal was often followed by bread and molasses, or included pancakes and dumplings (called POUTINES).

The morning meal (breakfast) was usually the heartiest and was served after they had worked-up an appetite from the morning chores and would BOUDIN (blood pudding), CRETONS, GRILLADES and TOURTIERES (meat pies) as well as leftovers from the previous day’s meals. The three meals of the day were called déjeuner (breakfast), dîner (dinner) and souper (supper).

Age-old Acadian cooking techniques remained fundamentally unaltered throughout the late eighteenth century, despite radical changes in their diet. The Acadians utilized two main cooking techniques; boiling or frying in chaudrons (black cast-iron pots). Turnips and cabbages were cooked by boiling together into a “soupe de la Toussaint”, an extremely popular pre-expulsion delicacy during Winter months.

In general, cooking techniques for fish were quite simple… salted herbs, a combination of onions, chives and green onions cut into 1/2 inch cubes and layered with coarse sea salt and pepper in a glass crock, and boiled until a brine formed. The fresh fish (caught daily) were then simmered in this seasoned water and then fried.

Except for a few dishes, frying was restricted to fish and baking was restricted to bread. Whole wheat or mixed grain bread was served at major meals, according to eighteenth century observers, and loaves were inevitably consumed with molasses and locally produced maple syrup.

Participating restaurants will showcase dishes featuring locally grown fruits, vegetables, meats and cheeses. Show your support for local agriculture and good food by dining out at one of the 34 Local Hero restaurants on August 21st. A sampling of the restaurant specials include:

• Steamed Australis barramundi with black bean sauce and local bok choy at The Great Wall in Florence.
• Local corn chowder with Pekarski Sausage smoked bacon at Sienna.
• Local Hero pizza topped with basil pesto, Hillside Gardens organic basil, walla walla onions, and tomatoes at Hillside Pizza.
• Scallops con pesca-pan-seared sea scallops with grilled fresh peaches and a peach, cognac cream sauce served over roasted fresh Hadley corn risotto with fresh basil and parmigiano at Carmelina’s.
• Steamed Black Sheep Farm haricot verts with olive oil and parmesan cheese to go from The Black Sheep Deli or eat the Black Sheep Farm ratatouille with farm fresh tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and onions from The Black Sheep Deli.
• Roasted beet and arugula salad with Sangha Farm goat cheese, spiced pecans, and sherry vinaigrette followed by your choice of roasted duck breast with fresh local peach chutney or sautéed ahi tuna nicoise with farm fresh haricot verts, roasted fresh red peppers and baby fingerlings at Butternuts Eatery.
• Roasted Veggie Platter - vegetables from Riverland Farm including roasted zucchini, summer squash, beets and onions, seasoned with a balsamic dressing and a little goat cheese from Goats Rising Farm served with a baked ricotta cheese spread and grilled foccaccia bread at Bridgeside Grille.
• Maple Glazed Outlook Farm Pork Chops stuffed with smoked cheddar and apple stuffing, with a side of freestone peach salsa and sides of Hatfield country style mashed potatoes, Native sweet corn, and seasonal vegetables from Union Station Restaurant.

“Our Local Hero restaurants serve the best tasting, freshest foods around. And at the same time, they support the local economy and help our farmers build stronger businesses,” says Local Hero Membership Coordinator Devon Whitney- Deal. “Everyone dining at a Local Hero restaurant will eat well and feel good about supporting one of our area’s most precious resources: our farms.”

Community members are welcome to sign-up for the challenge at the customer service desk at the Co-op. Participants can choose their level of involvement and the duration of their commitment-from local produce for a particular meal to 100% of their diet for a month. Each day, local prizes will be awarded to challenge participants by raffle, including one final grand prize. The sooner you sign up, the more chances you have to win prizes. So, if you want to challenge your regular purchasing patterns, consider taking this opportunity to test out your local food savy with the Co-op’s support.