As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Things which are lost, like Hidatsa red striped sunflowers are a mystery which might never be repeated. As most will not have an idea of what a Hidatsa is either, I enter upon the "best dish" the Missouri River Indians had.
There were interesting aboriginals in their life story said they came from under Devil's Lake and part of their people were still inside the world, as a pregnant woman climbing up the rope, broke it and separated the peoples.
Hidatsa Four Vegetable
I put a clay pot with water on the fire.
Into the pot I threw one double-handful of beans. This was a fixed quantity; I put in just one double-handful whether the family to be served was large or small; for a larger quantity of beans in this dish was apt to make gas on one's stomach.
When we dried squash in the fall we strung the slices upon strings of twisted grass, each seven Indian fathoms long; an Indian fathom is the distance between a woman's two hands outstretched on either side.
From one of these seven-fathom strings I cut a piece as long as from my elbow to the tip of my thumb; the two ends of the severed piece I tied together, making a ring; and this I dropped into the pot with the beans. When the squash slices were well cooked I lifted them out of the pot by the grass string into a wooden bowl.
With a horn spoon I chopped and mashed the cooked squash slices into a mass, which I now returned to the pot with the beans.
The grass string I threw away.
To the mess I now added four or five doublehandfuls of mixed meal, of pounded parched sunflower seed and pounded parched com.
The whole was boiled for a few minutes more, and was ready for serving.
I have no idea if boiled Great Northern or Hidatsa Shield Figure or Red Beans were used. I have no idea if boiled beans without salt, the Mandan type squash.....which I ate once and made me frightfully sick, and parched sunflower and corn meal would be anything without salt....but something that might be preferable to colt foetus boiled in it's own placenta which the Comanche enjoyed or boiled dog which the Sioux relished.
Old recipe which is unknown, but now is recorded.....imagine it would stick with your ribs, but then a nice buffalo hump would too.
*Note alkali salt was sometimes added to the 4 vegetables, and this dish was a winter food. Best served with a Big Horn Sheep spoon.
agtG