Navajo Grandma Chiiłchin Sumac Berry Pudding Episode 11

this is navajo grandma on a road trip to take you out into nature and show you this time the chief chen bush which is the sumac berries and it's called chief chin in danae or navajo the land navajo language usually these grow nearby uh running water if you can hear in the background you can kind of hear the stream look at all these cheat chin berries look at this mother nature has already dried them for me and i'm just picking them look at the water that feeds us and nourishes this cheek chin bush the cheek chin see i'm just kind of going through this with you look at that and they're kind of sticky you can kind of see some jello on it still they're in clusters mother nature's already dried them for me and i didn't have to lay them out but i will wash them and you can at that point blend them and make the navajo pudding so i'm going to show you really quick i usually just tap these very easily i tap this and these just fall off and that's why i love picking the chief chin at this time of year now there's 250 different sumac species they they kind of look different but these have these type of leaves they're the three leaves and i remember when i grew up with my little friend they'd say oh my gosh you're eating poison ivy and i just chew them down and they just look at me like i was crazy but they were sour and they were wonderful as we progress in this video you will see how i clean it and how we're going to make the pudding yum wish you were here i want you to see the chin that i was able to gather out in the mountains and notice the leaves i'm going to be cleaning this so a lot of cleaning here is the end result of my cleaning i just wanted to show you how beautiful the chief chin is that that i was able to pick in the mountains and went on that road trip with you and look how beautiful and just lovely then what i've done is i've used a coffee grinder and i ground this and if you can tell now it's ready for the pudding i also wanted to show you this is the vine of the cheek chin and if you notice how long and beautiful it is this is what is used by the dna people now by the dna people to make uh baskets and isn't this beautiful this is my great great great grandmother's uh wedding basket when she got married and it is old if you can tell it's cracking but they use a tree gum and fill all these uh in and basically you can drink water out of it after these are horse this is horse hair they they put as uh handles and you can tell it is a very old old basket but i treasure this and so these are you know you can make baskets i wanted just to show you from the che chin branches now on to making the pudding here is the chief chin in the coffee grinder now we are going to proceed to grind a half a cup of cheese chin [Music] it's important you grind the seeds with [Music] this look how beautiful it is all ground oh it smells lovely i am now in the process of making the cheek chin pudding so here are the ingredients we have a half a cup of flour we have a half a cup of cheese chin look how beautiful and rich and we're going to mix it in a bowl very simple this is a small serving okay so look at this beautiful you can add as much sugar as you want okay to taste or whatever i'm just adding in the amount that i've measured now i'm mixing this up if you can see how beautiful okay so it's pretty well mixed all the dry ingredients if you can see beautiful and you need to make sure the lumps no lumps are in there that's why i use a spoon like this now we are going to put two cups of water in a bowl we have two cups of water boiling okay so now we're going to mix the cheese chin in here and it's mixing and the flour when you mix the flour with the chief chin that's what thickens it that's a thickening agent you don't want to use wet wet uh chief chin it'll be sticky and you don't want that okay so i gotta mix that really well see that's why the strainer type of spoon is good so that you can make sure that it's not lumpy because when you put it in the hot water you'll end up getting more lumps and that's not the idea of this can you see that just beautiful now we're going to move on to the next step now that the water is boiling you can see the beautiful chin and the flour and the sugar we pour this in here and as the water boils beautiful beautiful pudding we're gonna make here and you have to keep stirring stir really well just make sure that's why i have that strainer like a spoon that i mix it with when you let it boil it'll start to get thick now it's not going to get thick super thick now we're doing this out in nature that's what called mother nature you can do this at home of course in your kitchen but you know i like to keep things natural it's funner to cook out in nature and we love that and i like to sing while i'm mixing it's starting to thicken it'll start to get like pudding and oh it's lovely yummy and lovely and it's called cheese chin not chee chen or chill chen it's teeth chin hope i'm not spitting into the in the pudding but has a sound to it when i go down to new mexico you'll see people selling this on the side of the road and blue corn mush is another treat if you cannot have sugar if you're diabetic or whatever add a tablespoon or so or not even use sugar you you don't just let it boil on its own you have to keep stirring because you don't want it to become thick and yucky down at the bottom and pretty soon you'll have a mess that's not what you want see i feel it getting thicker this is fun now even no matter what you just keep stirring patience is a virtue a long time ago you had the grinding stones and you ground these sumac berries nowadays it's coffee grinder almost done it's taking a little longer because we are doing this over the briquettes not on a stove okay it's time to put it in a cup and i'm going to be the taste tester how's that now we have finished the pudding so this is the recipe now grandma let's try this hmm said connie [Music] it tastes good oh oh i wish you were here yum [Music] always the most wonderful healthy treat so for now this is grandma amassana navajo grandma signing off and remember how you say goodbye just for a while how gorna and i will see you again please subscribe i love your comments you are so awesome i wish you were here with me maybe one day i might run into you so i'm going to enjoy the rest of my pudding and see you later

Channel: Navajo Grandma

Views: 4,064

Rating: 4.989717 out of 5

Keywords: Chiiłchin, Sumac Berry Pudding, Navajo, Pudding, Traditional, Navajo Women, Navajo Woman, Navajo Cooking, Recipes, Native American, Native American Plant uses, Native American Recipes, Cooking, Foraging, Wild Edibles, Survival Food

Id: XP-eRvbO1Ig

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020