The Three Sisters: Green Chile Stew and Frybread
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Canyon of the Ancients ![]()
Chaco Canyon ![]()
Chaco Canyon
For this post, I decided to journey to the Four Corners. The four corners references where the states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. Archaeologically, this is an amazing region. In part because “the Four Corners has the highest density of sites in North America and is equal to any of the great archaeological areas of the world.” Because, of this, we know a large amount about the history of this region, including their foodways!
Today, the four corners region is part of the United States, acquired after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Prior to the arrival of conquistadors; however, the lands were part of the ancestral Puebloan world (you may have heard of this by the term “Anazasi”) and later the Ute and Navajo. And today, several Native Nations have reservations in the region, including the Navajo, Hopi, Ute, and Zuni (and the Pueblo a little further south). There is a lot of great info out there on this region (see references at bottom of post for more) such as Crow Canyon’s timeline and Native Lands, a web resource on the history of indigenous lands in the Americas, I highly recommend you spend some time exploring it.
To steal a phrase, Native peoples are America’s originals chefs. A quick note on terminology. What do we call these peoples, Native Americans, Indians, Indigenous? To quote the Smithsonain:
“All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or indigenous American are preferred by many Native people
-National Museum of the American Indian
People have been in the Americas for thousands of years (probably circa 20,000 years ago). Upon their arrival, these early peoples quickly adapted to the new environments, creating and producing new tools and technology to help them exploit the wild resources. As you can imagine, the Americas encompass a wide variety of terrains and climates, resulting in a diversity of different plants and animals. These early hunter-gatherers began eating large game, such as bison and mammoths, as well as seafood, and a huge variety of wild plants upon their arrival. In the Americas, starting about ten thousand years ago (in some cases even more), people began domesticating plants and animals. Early and later domesticates include things such as potatoes, maize, squash, beans, chilies, tomatoes, agave, pumpkin, turkeys, honey bees, and so many more!
When compared to the early domesticates from the Old World, an interesting pattern emerges. Relatively few animals were domesticated in the Americas, though wild game such as bison, were often a substantial part of some groups diet. In South America, domesticated animals include Alpacas, Llamas, and Guinea pigs, and in Mesoamerica (and eventually North American) turkeys, ducks, and honey bees. Why so few animals? Likely, this simply reflects what animals are present (the Old World has cows, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.), the need (wild game was readily available here), and choice. And despite the limited domestication of animals, the diets of these early American’s were just as rich and diverse as anywhere else in the world. Perhaps even more so. After all, the range of American domesticates includes chocolate. Down the road, the lack of domesticated animals would play role in the spread of disease following the conquest, read more here.
All right, back to the Four Corners. Archaeology in this region can tell us a lot about early foodways. Generally, early peoples in this region relied on wild resources until about 1500 BCE when domesticates from Mesoamerica were introduced. From 1500 BCE until around 50 CE, people relied on domesticated corn and squash as well a range of wild plants and animals. By 50 CE through 500 CE, the diet was the same, but people began living in shallow pithouses, and sometimes even villages. By 500 CE, villages are common, the bow-and-arrow is in use (great for hunting smaller-game), and pottery is introduced. Why does pottery matter? Besides being great for storage and transportation, pottery allows people to cook beans, which take a long time. As a result, this is when beans become a commonly cultivated food. I’ll come back to corns, beans, and squash (the three sisters!) below. It also at this time that domesticated turkeys were becoming common. However, while domesticates became an increasing portion of people’s diets, wild plants, such as pinyons, and animals, such as deer, were still common.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the three sisters. Together corn, beans, and squash were the dominant crops in many Native North American agricultural systems from the introduction of maize 4,500 years ago until the arrival of the Spanish. What makes the three sisters essential is the fact that together, they provide a complete diet of complex carbohydrates, essential fatty acids, and all nine essential amino acids.
They also benefit each other during cultivation. Maize is nitrogen depleting (bad), but growing beans in with maize fixes nitrogen in the soil (good). Maize also provides natural pole for the beans vines to grow. Squash plants can help with weeds and the leave can help maintain soil moisture and even deter pests. Think of it as a symbiotic relationship. And generally, compared to European practices of mono-cropping, this type of agriculture is more productive and better for the crops, soils, and the environment.
The base of the stew I decided to make for this post, Green Chile Stew, is the three sisters. It has corn, beans, and squash! But it also has tomatoes, potatoes, and green chilies (and turkey/pork if you want a meat version). Versions of this dish are common among many Native Nations, such as Sean Sherman’s Three Sisters Bowl or the First Nations Development Institute Three Sisters Soup. You can even find it at Tocabe in Denver, run by Matt Chandra and Ben Jacobs of the Osage Nation.
The version I went with; however, adds in a lot of green chilies. While the archaeological record supports that three-sisters soups were likely consumed in the Prehistoric period, it is unlikely that pre-19th century, green chiles were added to these stews. This is because green chiles were likely introduced from the south via Mexican traders and settlers during the influx of people of European descent into the region (circa 1840’s).
Today, the town of Pueblo, Colorado is famous for its green chile festival. Their cultivation in southern Colorado over generations has resulted in unique local varieties, such as the Mosco, which is common today. Their spiciness, not always common in native North American foods, harkens back to their Mexican origin. Interestingly, many of these early chile farmers were from Italy, and today, a sort of fusion with Italian cuisine can be found in the region.
Okay, back to the timeline.
The scale and size of village life, and the scale of agriculture, in the Southwest region continued to increase, culminating in what archaeologists call the Pueblo II (900-1150 CE) and Pueblo III (1150-1350 CE) periods. It was at these times that some of the largest sites flourished, such as Chaco Canyon (In New Mexico) and later Mesa Verde (In Colorado). By the end of the 1200s; however, the Pueblo people had left the four corners and moved south into “what today are the states of Arizona and New Mexico.” The groups that moved into the region in their wake, including the Ute and Navajo, were primarily hunter-gatherers, a lifestyle that had not been common since the Archaic period (6500-1500 BCE). It was these hunter-gatherer peoples that the Spanish would make contact with in the last years of the 16th centry.
The fact that the Spanish would enter the region to find primarily hunter-gathers, coupled with racism and colonialism, led them to believe that the Native American’s were less advanced, lacking civilization. These ideas of the “inferior Indian” played, and continue to play, a role in the larger patterns of Native American erasure, genocide, and dispossession. While food might seem inconsequential, it too was subject to these beliefs and practices. In fact, foodways played into the larger patterns of genocide and assimilation enacted against Native Americans by the U.S. government. When groups were moved onto reservations, most lost access to their traditional homelands, and thus their traditional foods. Instead, Native Americans were forced to rely on government subsidies, such as flour, salt, sugar, and lard (a very unhealthy combination).
The lack of awareness of Native foods and history is perhaps best illustrated by the story of the cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations. The author of this cookbook, Lois Ellen Frank, had traveled around the U.S. and found that while teaching that American cuisine was made up of immigrant populations was common, “the traditions of Native kitchens were largely overlooked.” Her 2002 cookbook sought to remedy this failing and became the first Native American cookbook to win the James Beard Award (in 2003). Since then, other indigenous chefs and authors have been recognized, notably the Sioux Chef Sean Sherman in 2019. Despite the increasing recognition of Native Chefs and foods, however, their presence is still heavily marginalized.
Moreover, commonly recognized Native foods, such as frybread, are controversial. I made frybread for this post. So let’s talk about the controversy of this dish.
“The role that frybread currently plays in American Indian communities throughout Indian Country is at once fundamental, dynamic, and disputed.” On one hand, it represents an innovative solution to food access. The lore states that frybread was invented when the Diné (Navajo) were forcibly relocated to Fort Summer in 1864 and provided only rations of flour, salt, and lard for substance. On the other hand, it has minimal nutritional value. However, frybread has high caloric value, playing a pivotal role in warding off starvation for these dispossessed peoples. This invention quickly spread across Indian Country.
In many ways, frybread is a unifying force and a symbol of survival. Many Native Nations make frybread to this day. However, because of frybreads’ lack of nutritional value, coupled with the health epidemics present among many native peoples (including obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism), the American Indian Health and Family Services (AIHFS) insisted that people no longer consume frybread. A sentiment that is often pushed in indigenous health initiatives which stress a return to “traditional foods” (see this and this). This idea of the negatives of frybread is encapsulated in the quote “frybread has killed more Indians than the federal government“.
On the other hand, the control of frybread can be framed as yet another attempt at assault on Native bodies; “a decision made without their consent and in a vacuum lacking historical, medical, nutritional, and cultural contexts.”
Frybread is a simple food and yet a complex symbol. It is a cultural symbol of native identity and cuisine; resilience and survival; health and identity; assimilation and settler-colonialism. Today, despite the controversy, it is commonly served at feasts, powwows, and other celebrations. And its importance in the history of Native American life cannot be dismissed.
I hope you enjoyed reading the post! Don’t forget to like and subscribe! And, if you make one of the recipes, let me know how it went!
Three Sister Recipes
References
- Books
- Lekson, S. H. 2009. A History of the Ancient Southwest. SAR Press, Santa Fe.
- Lekson, S. H. (editor) 2007. The Architecture of Chaco Canyon. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
- Lekson, S.H. 2005. Complexity. In Southwestern Archaeology in the Twentieth Century, edited by Linda Cordell and Donald Fowler. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
- Webpages
- Crow Canyon
- Cookbooks and Recipes
