Store

First Nations Foodways

Indigenous

⚠ NOT ONE FOOD CULTURE. What the record supports, by region and people. The NORTHWEST COAST — Haida, Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nisga’a, Gitxsan, Coast Salish — with SALMON at the centre, wind-dried and smoked, plus eulachon and its grease (a trade good so important the routes are called grease trails), halibut, herring roe on kelp, and camas and berries from managed ground. The INTERIOR PLATEAU — Secwépemc, Syilx — with salmon, bitterroot, camas and the pit cook. The PLAINS — Blackfoot, Cree, Nakoda, Tsuut’ina — built on the BUFFALO, and on PEMMICAN, dried pounded meat with rendered fat and often saskatoon berries, which kept for years and fuelled the fur trade. The EASTERN WOODLANDS — Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe — with the THREE SISTERS, maple, wild rice and fish. The SUBARCTIC — Dene, Innu, Cree — with caribou, moose, fish and bannock-adjacent breads. ⚠ THE BUFFALO WERE DESTROYED DELIBERATELY as policy, and the starvation that followed was used to force treaty and reserve settlement. That is food history.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Haida community documented
  • Tlingit community documented
  • Nuu-chah-nulth community documented
  • Kwakwaka’wakw community documented
  • Blackfoot community documented
  • Cree community documented
  • Anishinaabe community documented
  • Haudenosaunee community documented
  • Dene community documented
  • Innu community documented
  • Mi’kmaq community documented

Languages: Plains Cree, Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin), Mohawk, Blackfoot, Northern Haida, Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwak'wala, Nisga'a, Gitxsan, Okanagan, Mi'kmaq, Atikamekw, Montagnais

What is recorded

  • Northwest Coast foodways are documented as centred on salmon, eulachon and its rendered grease — traded inland along routes known as grease trails — halibut and herring roe. Plains foodways were built on the buffalo and on pemmican, dried pounded meat with rendered fat and often saskatoon berries. The near-extermination of the buffalo by the 1880s, and the starvation that followed, are documented as having been used to compel treaty adherence and reserve settlement. documented
  • The buffalo are destroyed on the Canadian plains; the starvation that follows is used to compel treaty adherence and reserve settlement. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Sámi Foodways possible

    Comparable circumpolar herding and hunting systems; ⚠ recorded as a comparison, not a connection.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • originates from Maple Foodways documented

    ⚠ Tapping maples and reducing the sap is documented Indigenous practice of the north-eastern woodlands that preceded European arrival.

  • related to First Nations, Inuit and Métis — a note documented
  • related to Indigenous New England Foodways documented

    The Wabanaki — Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq — live on both sides of a border drawn across their territory.

  • related to Métis Foodways documented

    The Métis emerged from unions of Cree, Anishinaabe and Saulteaux women with French and Scottish traders; Michif is French nouns with Cree verbs.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.