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Eating Like a Real Californian
Indian recipes and culture of original Americans Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast by Margaret Dubin and S.L. Tolley. ISBN: 978-1-59714-078-2
by Vic Chapman
California is an abundant place; the first Yankees who saw it referred to it as the fattest land they ever saw, and they weren’t kidding. The streams were filled with salmon, sturgeon, bream and trout; the valleys were full of bear, deer, mountain lions and no end of other game and the skies were dark with birds; ducks, pigeon, quail, dove, geese, pheasant, partridge and even upland grouse in the northern part of the state. The seas were a veritable garden bed of clams, abalones, mussels and the now-forgotten California oyster; a micro-sized, coppery tasting little viand fished to extinction about a hundred years ago. Besides all that, there were seeds in abundance; pinon nuts, acorns, manzanita and much else were the foodstuff of the Indians of Alta California; much of this is nearly gone now and much else is forgotten as the Yankee taste did not cotton to the fat of the land and created new foods more suited to mass production and speed instead.
That’s why Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider; A California Indian Feast is such a treasure. The book is a museum tour of a vanished culture’s food ways, featuring overviews of the native way of cooking here as well as recipes, essays on hunting and gathering; and how the Indians worked in their environment and the details of preparation. It’s a call to understand the native culture through their food and more importantly, how the natives functioned in what’s now the Golden State.
Got a hankering for roast salmon? Do you know how to make a simple fire pit and roast the fish on a stick so that it won’t burn and will keep its supple flavor and juices intact? Do you know how to harvest the seaweed and how to make it edible? How about roasting agave hearts underground? Ever barbecue clams? The Indians did and ate very well. You can too; California is still an abundant place.
Beyond the food, Seaweed offers a different way of being. The Indians were masters of their environment just as we are masters of ours, but theirs was the natural world. Just how well adapted the Indians once were until the Spanish and later the Americans arrived comes through in every page and like good survivors, the descendants of their tribes still carry on with the original culture, even if they have to get the proper fishing and hunting licenses to do it and monitor the hunting and fishing areas for pollution and changes in the environment.
The book’s outstanding flaw is that it contains a tipped-in fly page warning the reader that instructions on preparing flour from acorn paste are incomplete and therefore unsafe. Consider yourself warned. Also, consider yourself urged to find this book whether you're a cook, interested in the state’s heritage or just plain curious. Seaweed is a window not merely to a forgotten time, but another world entirely—one that shouldn’t be missed.
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