Roast Turkey, Wild Onions, and Maple Squash

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave." 

-- Words of wisdom from the Dakota People

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day in which we give thanks for all of our blessings over the past year. The holiday draws inspiration from events, partly historical and partly fictional, that transpired in the fall of 1621. The pilgrims of the Plymouth colony (that is, white colonizers) organized a feast to celebrate their successful harvest, giving thanks for the cultivation of food that would support them through the winter. 

That's where the history ends and much of the fiction begins. Subsequent generations would be taught that the feast was one shared by grateful pilgrims and their neighbors, the indigenous Wampanoag people. That is not entirely accurate. The feast was initially a white person, pilgrim/colonizer affair, because they did not initially invite the Wampanoag to the feast. Rather, the Wampanoag arrived after hearing gunshots fired off by celebratory pilgrims, thinking that the pilgrims were under an attack. Only after they arrived were the indigenous people allowed to stay and join in the feast. 

Thanksgiving was, and continues to be, built upon a myth of celebration and cooperation between white colonists and the indigenous people. The actual history -- over four hundred years of it -- defined what would become the United States. That definition includes the forced displacement and death of a majority of the indigenous people, removed from the land upon which their ancestors built not only comunities but also entire cultures and societies. Much of those civilizations have been lost, as the United States established itself, and expanded itself, at the expense of the indigenous peoples, nation after nation. 

Those are the tracks that we have left as a country and as "the American people." It is a path hardly discussed because holidays like Thanksgiving have us looking anywhere but down at our feet. So, for this particular Thanksgiving in 2025, I thought I would do something other than express gratitude for my blessings. I am looking down at my feet, at the ground.

The particular context of my feast unfolded in the city of Crisfield, Maryland, where my beautiful Angel and my wonderful family took a short trip during the holiday weekend. I found a lovely house in Crisfield, Maryland (more about that in another post), where I would prepare our holiday feast with help from our family. The city of Crisfield lies on a peninsula that was originally the home of the Annamessex people, who, in turn, were part of the Pocomoke Paramountcy. As an aside, the colonizers who reached this penninsula referred to it as the "Annamessex Neck." 

It is difficult to find much about the Annamessex people, but there is more out there about the greater Pocomoke nation. That nation stretched across the eastern shore, particularly along the Annamessex, Manokin, and Pocomoke rivers. They were organized into communities, with women and younger children growing corn, beans and squashes, while men and older boys hunted, trapped and fished. The Pocomoke were also traders, producing wampum, which are the shell beads and belts, and peake, which are darker beads made from clams. In addition to trading wampum and peake, the Pocomoke also crafted dug-out canoes that they used for transport and trade. 

As European colonizers settled in Annamessex Neck, the indigenous people were driven from their lands. The colonizers claimed the territory, refused to allow indigenous people to hunt on the land, and, with the assistance of the local and state governments, forced the Annamessex onto a reservation located at Askiminokonson, near present day Snow Hill, Maryland. Eventually, the white colonizers claimed that territory, leaving the Annamessex, along with the greater Pocomoke nation, with nothing. 

I have been unable to locate any Annamessex or even Pocomoke recipes for a turkey. This particular roast turkey recipe comes from Sean Sherman, an Ogala Lakota chef who has made it his mission to preserve and advance indigenous cuisine. He focuses upon both the ingredients and cooking processes used by indigenous cooks across Turtle Island. (I also used his recipe for wojape to serve alongside the turkey). 

I have to admit that I had some concerns, because the recipe did not call for a stuffing. I have always prepared roast turkeys with stuffings, using the latter to help regulate temperatures and add flavors to the meat. Fearful that I would overcook the bird without a stuffing, I decided to utilize a stuffing from Renewing America's Food Traditons, a book written by Gary Paul Nabhan. A first-generation Lebanese-American, Nabhan is an Agricutural Ecologist, Ethnobiologist, and Franciscan brother. He has worked with indigenous peoples, particularly in the southwestern United States and Mexico to preserve their foodways and advocate for their sovereignty. This particular stuffing comes from the opposite side of the United States, with a recipe offered in connection with a discussion of the endangered Naragannsett Turkey. The stuffing is not a traditional one that would be served alongside the bird. Instead, it consists of ingredients intended to provide additonal flavors to the meat. 

With these recipes in hand, I proceeded with Chef Sherman's Roast Turkey, Wild Onions and Maple Squash recipe. The overall dish provided a great example of indigenous foods could be prepared by indigenous peoples like the Annamessex. Wild turkeys are found across the State of Maryland; and, as noted above, the Annamessex cultivated squash. They could have easily gathered wild onions from around their village, along with other ingredients, such as juniper berries, which could have been gathered from the eastern red cedar trees or perhaps the common juniper (before it went locally extinct in the State of Maryland). 

In sum, this dish and my heart is with honoring those who were originally present and thriving here, long before any Spanish explorer or English colonizer ever set foot on dry land in this hemisphere. I also want to acknowledge the tracks that have been left over the centuries, and, for what that means when it comes to the United States. Our greatness (if it can be called that) came with a tremendous cost, a price not paid by those who benefitted the most, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. If we want to truly be known as a great country (however that could be defined), then that requires us to come to terms with our past. Otherwise, we can never truly achieve greatness as a country.  

ROAST TURKEY, WILD ONIONS AND MAPLE SQUASH

Recipe from Sean Sherman, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, pg. 107

Additional cavity stuffing recipe from Gary Paul Nabhan, Renewing America's Food Traditions, pg. 125

Serves 8

Ingredients (for the roast turkey):

• 1 small turkey (about 10-12 pounds)
• 1/4 cup hazelnut oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped sage
• Coarse salt
• Crushed juniper
• 2 cups corn, wild rice, or turkey stock
• 4 wild onions or 2 large onions, quartered
• 1 cup wild mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cups winter squash, cubed
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

Ingredients (for the cavity stuffing):

• 2 tablespoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried marjoram or sweet basil leaves
• 1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup chopped celery stalks
• 1 small white onion, chopped

Directions:

1. Prepare the turkey. One hour before roasting, remove the turkey from the refrigerator and bring to room temperature. In a blender, puree the hazelnut oil and sage and rub over the turkey. Season with salt and juniper.

2. Prepare the cavity. Rub the cavity with a mixture of 1 tablespoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, all of the basil or marjoram, and some of the chopped parsley. Combine the bread crumbs, lump of butter (mixed with salt and pepper), the rest of the parsley, chopped celery and onion. Stuff the mixture into the cavities of the turkey. 

3. Roast the turkey. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the turkey in a roasting pan, add the stock and put in the oven. Roast until the turkey is a light golden brown, about 45 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and continue roasting. After about 1 1/2 hours, scatter the onions, mushrooms and squash into the roasting pan and baste the turkey and vegetables occasionally with the pan juices. Continue cooking until the an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thigh reads 160 degrees Fahrenheit, about 30 minutes to 1 hour longer. Brush the turkey with the maple syrup. 

4. Finish the dish. Remove the turkey from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Arrange the vegetables on a platter. Carve the turkey and arrange over the vegetables. Drizzle the pan juices over all. Serve with wild rice and cranberry sauce or wojape.  

PEACE.

Morning Tsampa

In a prior post, I began the exploration of tsampa, one of the most fundamental aspects of the Tibetan foodways. The cultivation of barley, along with the roasting of barley berries, gave rise to a foodstuff that provided sustenance to the Tibetan people, allowing them to expand their culture and civilization across the high, arid Tibetan plateau. As part of this journey, I made my own tsampa, roasting the barley and grinding it down into the finest powder that I could with what I have. 

Now it is time to go further down those foodways, to explore the uses of tsampa. A British adventurer and food writer, Peter Fleming, once recounted a basic way of preparing breakfast with tsampa: 

You fill your shallow wooden bowl with tea, then you let the butter melt in the tea (the butter is usually rancid and has a good cheesy flavor); then you put a handful of tsampa in. At first it floats; then like a child's castle of sand, its foundation begins to be eaten by the liquid. You coax it with your fingers until it is more or less saturated and has become a paste; this you knead until you have a kind of doughy cake in your hand and the wooden bowl is empty and clean. Breakfast is ready.

Fleming provides quite the description, and, maybe someday I will try to prepare breakfast in that manner. That date may have to wait until I have some rancid butter. 

More recent accounts, such as one by Barbara Hazelton, who visited Tibet in 2016, provide a similar glimpse into how tsampa is eaten at breakfast. Hazelton wrote: 

The trip to Tibet is long and arduous, and over these many trips to Tibet, I have found I have developed my wits and ways of adapting to this fierce world. In the monastery, the food, tiresome, over-fried and boiled vegetables and tasteless white rice which the kind, bow-legged cook Karma carefully prepares for the "foreigners," Rinpoche's guests, I discovered one gloomy cold morning, can be avoided by taking refuge in the warm cozy kitchen, where one finds the dzo yogurt from the nunnery and the leather bag of tsampa from the cook's family, hanging on a post by the kitchen stove and in the decorated wooden bowl, dried cheese, and sugar. This is where the monks gather and laugh and chat, as they make their morning tsampa balls and slurp the heavy nourishing butter tea, in the kitchen y the long black metal stove filled with fragrant wood, that snaps and spreads out its waves of welcome heat. 

This account -- with its dzo yogurt and tsampa -- provides a tie-in to what I decided would become my attempt to make a breakfast meal using tsampa. 

The recipe, Morning Tsampa, comes from the Beyond the Great Wall cookbook, which was written by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid. That cookbook taught me how to make tsampa in the first place, so it seemed only appropriate that it should guide my on my next step: to incorporate the roasted barley flour into a dish. 

The Morning Tsampa recipe, like many tsampa recipes, is very simple. It involves up to four ingredients, namely, tsampa, yogurt, berries and some sugary ingredient like maple syrup or honey. Those ingredients are combined in a bowl and eaten. The combination of tsampa (which is high in fiber, has important minerals, and promotes the growth of healthy gut bacteria), along with the yogurts and berries, probably represents the healthiest breakfast that I have ever had in my life time. 

For that reason, I have resolved that this dish will constitute the start of my day whenever possible. It also represents a significant step forward on my Mindfulness Foodways, as it not only represents a notable improvement in my diet, but one based upon an ingredient and foodstuff that has an important place in our world. 

MORNING TSAMPA

Recipe from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Daguid, 

Beyond the Great Wall, pg. 181

Ingredients:

• About 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt, plain or sweetened
• 3 tablespoons Tsampa, or to taste
• Handful of berries or chopped fruit (optional)
• Honey, sugar or maple syrup, to taste

Directions:

Place the yogurt in  bowl and stir in the tsampa thoroughly so it is all moistened. Add fruit and a sweetener (honey, sugar or maple syrup) if you wish.

PEACE.

Wojape (Wozapi)

If you could make your food taste exactly like the place where you are physically standing, then you can really evoke the flavor profile that resonates through history. This way of thinking provides a direct connection that we have as indigenous people to our ancestors and to the flavors of their foods, because those flavors have not changed.

-Sean Sherman, quoted in Cornell Chronicle

Quotes have an inherent force, a persuasiveness that brings an important point to the forefront so that it could be considered more fully and understood better. Yet, even quotes require a dive into the context surrounding the words, and, when it comes to the foodways of the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, understanding that context is critical.

Growing up in the Midwest, I learned very little about the indigenous peoples of North America. I write "very little" for a reason. To be sure, indigenous people were mentioned in my U.S. history books. However, the books told that history from the perspective of rich white men, not indigenous men and women. There was very little, if anything, from the perspective of those whose ancestors had lived on this continent for generations.

Fortunately, I found a hobby in cooking, which provides me with an opportunity to learn. I use these chances to educate myself, not just about how to prepare food, but also about the peoples, cultures and history behind the ingredients, cooking processes and dishes. I use this blog to record some of my thoughts and some of what I have learned after making the dishes.

One area that I wanted to further explore involves indigenous cooking throughout North America. The desire to learn about this particular aspect of cooking, as well as the underlying cultures and peoples, really took hold during a visit to  Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was there for work, but I found a restaurant near my hotel that sparked my interest. The restaurant is Owamni, which is run by Chef Sean Sherman. An Oglala Lakota, born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Chef Sherman has made it his life's work to educate everyone about indigenous cuisine, as the native Americans would have prepared it (that is, without "colonizer ingredients," such as wheat, beef, pork, etc.). My meal that I had at Owamni was one of the best meals that I had ever had in a restaurant (you can read my restaurant review here).

Since that time, I have wanted to explore indigenous cuisine. The first steps took place on Indigenous People's Day, when I decided to make Wojape or, as it translates in Lakota, "fruit stew." It is a native berry sauce made by indigenous peoples, including the Lakota and Dakota. They traditionally prepared the sauce with canpa'-hu, or, as we would call them chokecherries or bittercherries.  The chokecherry plant is part of the rose family, and it can be found throughout much of the United States and most of Canada. Its white flowers bloom in May, and, then give way to small, rather tart berries in July and August. When the berries are ripe, they are picked for use in a wide range of foods, one of the most common being pemmican, which is a combination of dried meat, fat and, of course, berries. A foodstuff necessary for survival in the northern Plains, especially during the long winter months.

Yet, the Lakota and Dakota also used chokecherries to make wojape. The traditional recipe calls for a combination of cooked chokeberries, pounded raw berries and ground root powder. The result is something that has the consistency of a pudding. As with pemmican, there was a purpose to the pudding. It transformed the berries into something that could last longer than a simple berry sauce.  

As much as I wanted to make a traditional Wojape, I faced a couple of obstacles. First, as common as chokecherries may be, I don't have a ready access to them. Chokecherries are not in my local grocery stores and I don't have the time to go foraging for them. Second, I have even less access to the root powder or root flour that would be used to make the dish. I did not want my start on this indigenous cooking exploration to begin with the use of corn starch or wheat flour. That would seem to be the wrong course to take.

Fortunately, I have a recipe that was developed by Chef Sean Sherman. The recipe comes from Chef Sherman's The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen cookbook. He provides a recipe that incorporates readily available substitutes, such as blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. His recipe also does not use root powder, but substitutes maple syrup or honey, which provides some slight thickening and more sweetness to the final dish. In the end, I was able to make Wojape; and, in a nod to indigenous cuisine, I served it over a roasted, sliced bison loin. 

WOJAPE (WOZAPI)

Recipe from Sean Sherman, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, pg. 173

Makes 4 to 6 cups

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of fresh berries (chokeberries or a mix of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, cranberries, blackberries)
• 1 to 1/2 cups water
• Honey or maple syrup, to taste

Directions:

Put the berries and water into a saucepan and set over low heat.  Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick. Taste and season with honey or maple syrup as desired.

ENJOY!

Spinach, Pear and Kerrygold Salad with Sweet Dressing

Recently, I made Carrot Soup with Coriander, Curry, Ginger and Chives for my Angel and I needed something else to make it a meal.  Clare has been craving salads, so I decided to prepare a salad for her.  I looked through the three pregnancy books that I have but there were no salads that captured my attention at that time.  So, I turned to the Internet, surfing pregnancy websites for a good, healthy salad. 

I came across a recipe for Spinach, Pear and Gruyere Salad with Sweet Dressing.  The recipe appeared on several pregnancy websites and it caught my attention because of the accompanying description.  "This recipe is especially for pregnant and breastfeeding women...."  I thought I could not go wrong with this recipe.  

It is a good thing, however, that I do not simply place blind trust in things I find on the Internet.  I check the labels of everything that goes into a dish for my beautiful Angel.  And, when I checked the label for Gruyere cheese, I discovered that it is unpasteurized.  It appears that much of Gruyere cheese is unpasteurized. One of the most fundamental dietary principles is that pregnant women should not eat unpasteurized cheese, because of the dangers of listeriosis.  I quickly "86'd" the Gruyere cheese and substituted it with a pasteurized cheese, namely Kerrygold Irish Cheddar.  That worked out well, because Clare really likes Kerrygold.  

SPINACH, PEAR AND KERRYGOLD SALAD WITH SWEET DRESSING

Recipe adapted from Kid's Health

Serves 4

Ingredients (for the salad):

8 cups of raw spinach

2 medium pears, sliced thin and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 ounces of Kerrygold Irish Cheddar

4 tablespoons of walnuts

Freshly ground pepper

Ingredients (for the dressing):

2 tablespoons of canola oil

2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons of maple syrup

Directions:

1.  Prepare the salad.  Wash and dry the spinach, tear into smaller pieces if necessary, and place in a large bowl.  Add the sliced pear.  

2.  Prepare the dressing.  Whisk the canola oil, apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.  Heat in a microwave safe container for 30 seconds.

3.  Finish the salad.  Toss the spinach and pears with the warm dressing.  Garnish with the sliced Kerrygold cheese, walnuts and freshly ground pepper.  

ENJOY!