Florencia (she/her)Native American Restaurants
AcernumThere’s Owamni in Minnesota. The food uses pre-colonial ingredients. So no dairy, eggs, wheat, etc. They also source the ingredients from indigenous farms
RowRowRowYourBotNo eggs? Are you telling me no one ate one if the more nutrient dense foods or are you saying it just doesn’t make it into cuisine because eggs wouldn’t be common to people who didn’t farm birds?
Chickens are an old-world animal, domesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia. IIRC there’s some possible evidence for chickens being taken to South America by the Polynesians, but they certainly didn’t become widespread in the Americas until the European colonizers showed up.
Maybe Native Americans ate the eggs of other birds that they did have access to, such as turkeys? But even if they did, it’s chicken eggs that are the ones easily commercially available in the quantities a restaurant would need, so…
Ah yeah I should have said poultry/ chicken eggs. I looked on the menu and there are some duck eggs
Flying SquidWhat I think is fascinating is that there is conclusive evidence that Polynesians and Indigenous South Americans interbred.
But only once.
Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement - Nature
Genomic analyses of DNA from modern individuals show that, about 800 years ago, pre-European contact occurred between Polynesian individuals and Native American individuals from near present-day Colombia, while remote Pacific islands were still being settled.
But only once.
I know, right? There are also a few bits of evidence for Polynesian contact in various places all up and down the coast, from Chile (Arucanian chickens) to California (Chumash canoes). But only a few.
Reaching the continent, I get.
Failing to reach the continent, I get.
But reaching the continent, making barely any (but not zero!) impact, and then noping out again? That’s just weird!