Maple Traditions in Northeastern Native Foods

Join Leah Hopkins (Narragansett/Niantic) and Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag), as they demonstrates and teach about the various traditional Native cooking methods of the Coastal Northeast. Leah and Elizabeth will share the recipes and cooking techniques of their families as well as the nutritional content of traditional foods. Leah and Elizabeth will share their cultural perspectives on these dishes and speak to the historical influence that Northeastern Native food has had on modern cuisine. This program will have a heavy focus on the the tradition of maple sugaring as an important and much celebrated gift of the early spring." We tend to have our own community celebrations and feasts on the full moons, so scheduling an event on the full moon can be a little tough. Personally, I think March 3 would be the best date, as this is the day after our Maple Sugaring Moon celebrations, and Elizabeth and I do a lot of interesting programming with regards to maple sugaring. We tap our own trees in our home communities. We can make traditional Native maple sugar candies, maple sugar, maple snow cones (provided there is snow on the ground) [the public can assist in most of these things], a tree tapping demonstration (provided you have maple trees on the property), and a cooking demonstration using maple as a staple ingredient (think maple tea, maple and chestnut nasamp, maple journey cakes, maple wild rice, etc.) and it could be indoors or outdoors. If you wanted to demonstrate sap boiling, that would have to be outdoors, but the rest of the cooking could occur inside.