Indigenous cuisine [1] is a type of cuisine that is based on the preparation of cooking recipes with products obtained from native species of a specific area.
Indigenous cuisine is prepared using indigenous ingredients of vegetable or animal origin in traditional recipes of the typical cuisine of a place.
Contemporary indigenous cuisine [2] uses indigenous products to create new dishes. [3]
Chefs and restaurateurs using indigenous foods are aided by farmers who are reviving traditional varieties and breeds. [4]
David Cook has asked how "indigenous cooking" can be defined, arguing that it can mean anything from techniques to ingredients, and that the ingredients can be further argued as using only pre-colonial ingredients vs. using post-colonial and invasive-species ingredients, concluding that "it all depends on your concept of [indigenous] identity." [5]
In Australia there are chefs both "sticking to the old recipes (and) innovating new ones" using traditional ingredients. [6]
In Canada multiple restaurants owned by First Nations restaurateurs offer menus based on traditional ingredients such as beans, corn, and squash. [1] According to restaurateur Shawn Adler, one of the challenges is public awareness. "People understand what Thai food is, what Italian food is, what Chinese food is, what Ethiopian food is," he said. "But people don’t really understand what indigenous cuisine is." [1]
The concept was also used in the Caribbean. [7]
The concept as such began to take shape and gain popularity in Chile at the beginning of the 2010s, when a restaurant dedicated to this style of cuisine in Santiago de Chile appeared in the ranking of the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2014. [8] [9]
In El Salvador indigenous cuisine is an "emerging movement...composed of young chefs who are integrating traditional foods into contemporary cuisine," according to NPR. [10] Fatima Mirandel said, "We take old ingredients from the [farming areas] and combine them in new ways. The flavor is new and exciting for our generation, and brings back a flood of good memories for the older people." [10]
Some US Native American chefs using indigenous ingredients in traditional dishes object to referring to indigenous cuisine as a "trend". Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota and indigenous food activist, [11] said, "It's not a trend. It's a way of life." [12]
Vincent Medina, a member of the Muwekma Ohlone trib, serves acorn-flour brownies, a non-traditional dish made with indigenous ingredients, at his Café Ohlone by Mak-’amham. [13]
Fusion cuisine is cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. Cuisines of this type are not categorized according to any one particular cuisine style and have played a part in innovations of many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.
Mexican cuisine consists of the cooking cuisines and traditions of the modern country of Mexico. Its earliest roots lie in Mesoamerican cuisine. Its ingredients and methods begin with the first agricultural communities such as the Maya who domesticated maize, created the standard process of maize nixtamalization, and established their foodways. Successive waves of other Mesoamerican groups brought with them their own cooking methods. These included: the Olmec, Teotihuacanos, Toltec, Huastec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi, Purépecha, Totonac, Mazatec, Mazahua, and Nahua. With the Mexica formation of the multi-ethnic Triple Alliance, culinary foodways became infused.
Soul food is an ethnic cuisine traditionally prepared and eaten by African Americans, originating in the Southern United States. The cuisine originated with the foods that were given to enslaved black people by their white owners on Southern plantations during the Antebellum period; however, it was strongly influenced by the traditional practices of West Africans and Native Americans from its inception. Due to the historical presence of African Americans in the region, soul food is closely associated with the cuisine of the American South although today it has become an easily identifiable and celebrated aspect of mainstream American food culture.
Taiwanese cuisine has several variations. Based on the cuisine of Taiwanese indigenous peoples and over hundred years of historical development, Taiwanese cuisine influenced by Hakka, Waishengren and Japanese cuisine, finally take the Hoklo people's cuisine as its major form. The beginning of the Taiwanese cuisine was the aborigines cuisine on the island, which existed in the ancient times without written records. From the Ming dynasty in 16th century, a large number of immigrants from the southern provinces of China especially Hoklo people brought the rich Chinese cuisine culture to Taiwan. At the same time, Hakka people from Fujian developed a different cuisine culture from Hoklo people as well. Because of the influence of Chinese immigration, Taiwanese cuisine often leads to it being classified as 'Southern Chinese cuisine'. Due to the period of Japanese rule, Taiwanese cuisine also had a strong influence from Japanese Washoku and Yōshoku. After WWII, as a result of the Kuomintang retreat to the island which brought along many Chinese cuisines outside the province of Fujian or Southeast China. After that, the dishes from whole mainland China especially Guangdong, Chaoshan, Shanghai, Sichuan and Beijing could be easily found in Taiwan.
Tex-Mex cuisine is an American and Texan cuisine that derives from the culinary creations of the Tejano people of Texas. It has spread from border states such as Texas and others in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country.
A mirepoix is a flavor base made from diced vegetables cooked—usually with butter, oil, or other fat—for a long time on low heat without coloring or browning, as further cooking, often with the addition of tomato purée, creates a darkened brown mixture called pinçage. It is not sautéed or otherwise hard cooked, because the intention is to sweeten the ingredients rather than caramelize them. It is a long-standing cooking technique in French cuisine.
California cuisine is a food movement that originated in California. The cuisine focuses on dishes that are driven by local and sustainable ingredients with an attention to seasonality and an emphasis on the bounty of the region.
New Zealand cuisine is largely driven by local ingredients and seasonal variations. An island nation with a primarily agricultural economy, New Zealand yields produce from land and sea. Similar to the cuisine of Australia, the cuisine of New Zealand is a diverse British-based cuisine, with Mediterranean and Pacific Rim influences as the country becomes more cosmopolitan.
The cuisine of the Southwestern United States is food styled after the rustic cooking of the Southwestern United States. It comprises a fusion of recipes for things that might have been eaten by Spanish colonial settlers, cowboys, Native Americans, and Mexicans throughout the post-Columbian era; there is, however, a great diversity in this kind of cuisine throughout the Southwestern states.
Peruvian cuisine reflects local practices and ingredients including influences mainly from the indigenous population, including the Inca, and cuisines brought by immigrants from Europe ; Asia ; and Africa. Without the familiar ingredients from their home countries, immigrants modified their traditional cuisines by using ingredients available in Peru.
Koshary, kushari or koshari is Egypt's national dish and a widely popular street food. An Egyptian dish that originated during the mid-19th century, the dish combines Italian and Arab culinary elements. Koshary is made of rice, macaroni, and lentils mixed together, topped with a spiced tomato sauce and garlic vinegar and garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions. It is often served with sprinklings of garlic juice; garlic vinegar and hot sauce are optional.
Frybread is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard. Made with simple ingredients, generally wheat flour, sugar, salt, and fat, frybread can be eaten alone or with various toppings such as honey, jam, powdered sugar, venison, or beef. Frybread can also be made into taco-like meals.
California-style pizza is a style of single-serving pizza that combines New York and Italian thin crust with toppings from the California cuisine cooking style. Its invention is generally attributed to chef Ed LaDou, and Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. Wolfgang Puck, after meeting LaDou, popularized the style of pizza in the rest of the country. It is served in many California Cuisine restaurants. Such restaurant chains as California Pizza Kitchen, Round Table Pizza, Extreme Pizza, and Sammy's Woodfired Pizza are four major pizza franchises associated with California-style pizza.
Poke is diced raw fish served either as an appetizer or a main course and is one of the main dishes of Native Hawaiian cuisine. Traditional forms are aku and heʻe (octopus). Heʻe poke is sometimes called tako poke in places where the Hawaiian language is not spoken. Poke differs from other raw fish dishes in that it does not use citrus fruits as a curing agent.
Southern fusion is a fusion cuisine that blends or combines cuisine elements from the American southern states or other cultures with traditional Southern cooking. The origin of Southern fusion took place before there was a defining phrase for this pattern of cooking. Traditional southern food has originated from African, European and Hispanic cultures. Due to this fact, Southern fusion usually occurs naturally between different regions and cultures through immigration. Southern fusion cuisine can mean a blend of various Southern styles of cooking, or a blend of Southern style with another style of cooking altogether. Prevalent Southern fusion cuisines include Tex-Mex, although there are countless combinations of cuisines that would fall under the category of Southern fusion. Many modern restaurants in the southern states feature elements of Southern fusion cooking.
Mexican-American cuisine is the cuisine of Mexican Americans and their descendants, who have modified Mexican cuisine under the influence of American culture and immigration patterns of Mexicans to the United States.
Sean Sherman is an Oglala Lakota Sioux chef, cookbook author, and promoter of indigenous cuisine. Sherman founded the indigenous food education business and caterer The Sioux Chef, as well as the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems. He received a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award and his 2017 cookbook, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook.
Lois Ellen Frank is an American food historian, cookbook author, culinary anthropologist, and educator. She won a 2003 James Beard Foundation Award for her cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, the first cookbook of Native American cuisine so honored.
Cook Like a Local: Flavors That Can Change How You Cook and See the World is a 2019 cookbook by Chris Shepherd and Kaitlyn Goalen, published by Short Stack Editions. Jolie Soefer was responsible for the photography featured in the volume.