They used sassafras and seafoods in their cooking. Then they began hiding the slaves in their villages, and the slaves had brought over okra seeds from Africa. So there you've got the makings of some great gumbo. The Powhatans in Virginia borrowed pigs from the Spanish and started feeding them peanuts brought by African slaves. Oden grew up on a reservation in Shawnee, Okla., and recently spent three years visiting and cooking on reservations all over the country, doing research for her menu at the Corn Dance.
Native origins run deep in our everyday cooking.
They would take beans and put them in a clay pot in a pit. Cranberries, squash, pumpkins, corn, turkeys, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes and chiles all originated in the Americas. Oden's own Potawatomi people originally occupied the Great Lakes northern woodlands regions. We got relocated into Oklahoma along with about 50 other groups. When I was a little girl we would go out and gather wild plums, my grandmother and my mother and I, and we would make wonderful jelly.