Old West Vignette/Tasting History: Navajo Food

hey guys thanks for tuning in to another episode of in range TV we are out here on the road in the Navajo reservation and we were getting hungry for lunch and figured it'd be pretty cool to actually just get some roadside Navajo food and show you guys what that consists of so the the place we stopped had basically two different offerings one is grilled lamb and one is mutton stew and a grilled lamb here is in a fry bread bundle and there's an interesting backstory to fry bread that isn't all that it's not all that complimentary to to us the white occupants of this area we'll get into that in a moment but we have some fry bread here with corn roasted green chili a little bit of potato and some lamb lamb and mutton are very very common here in the Navajo res we'll get into exactly why in a moment and then mutton stew that is a very legit mutton stew I think we got some some meat some fat broth and then the foil underneath is another piece of rye bread so Karl went you go ahead and set the camera and join me back here and let's try this out yes I got it you try that that is money so I think what we got here well mutton being lamb of course older lamb right cutting is older lamb so the the navajo landed up being sheep herders back in the spaniard era right one of the cool things about the Navajo tribe and this is just a vast generality but as Native American tribes go they're really good about adopting new technology and new influences without losing their own cultural background and that's not like today they have the internet know that deck was way back to when the Spanish first showed up here in the southwestern what is now United States the Spanish brought goats and sheep and the Navajo had been kind of a hunter-gatherer sort of culture and they really adapted quite well both to ranching sheep and goats in this territory and also raising crops primarily they had corn they had squash in this area corn yep all right green chilies this is we're a little far north for green chili yeah but that's that's one of those things that would absolutely be traded within this area so it's not cultural cooperation it's cultural synergy where they find things they bring it in and adopt it and as a result of being flexible and add up to having the ability to adopt other cultures they actually compared to some reservations have drived now yes reservations are not necessarily great places in general but in terms of if you put it in perspective the Navajo done quite well yes yeah we screwed them pretty hard yep Wow so how does badly is thumb to go back to Spaniards that's where they got the idea of being sheep herders and I still driving through the rest of the day you will literally see a hold on and you'll see a woman out with a shepherd's crook and a bunch of sheep that is still going on now drive right by it every day and so this is traditional food in fact one of the delicacies and I know this from something else are the eyes the sheep eyes are a big deal but what we have today is you have grilled lamb yep you're trying piece but I have not it's good bit simple this is all very simple you don't really have spices in the southwestern US except for Chile they had a little bit of chili powder over there they had some salt if you wanted to write anatomy because I wanted to eat it in its native form um this is delicious it's just it's really simply grilled lamb the green chilies are obviously delicious but dumplings do here the muttons do is so then a mutton is an old one so what you do with mutton is you make it into a stew because it's tough old meat right and so this is I have to tell you right now it's very tender that piece of meat I was probably pretty tender right I actually didn't get a piece of note why don't you get a spoon I know we're sharing but whatever so grab a piece of the mutton and that's been probably been cooked a very long time it does honestly look like old seen you eat meat mm-hmm it's a very honestly it's a very thin broth mm-hmm it's a very very mutton II broth if you don't like that flavor I don't know I use the word gamey but game II could be used a little bit I think some people will interpret mutton as gamy what I would say is that when you're actually out here she birding and you're actually they're actually feasting on the grass that's behind us in this video you get that risers well today they're grazing on the natural terrain which also some of which was injected by the Spaniards to some of this kind of stuff wasn't here they actually started planting grass to make some of this more cattle grazing capable sheep and goats can handle this stuff better than cod okay that's more in the southern Arizona region they actually would plant grass for cattle grazing but regardless people that are used to eating traditional you know not traditional anymore but the meat you get from the store that is very very different land very different than when you get meat that's been pre-arranged it has a very different I found a lot of free-range beef that has a very different flavor it's much more lean it cooks differently and it has a flavor that's not gamey not the word but if you're not familiar with rearranged meat it is gaming right yeah and then more interestingly enough we both have fry bread yeah private fiber is considered a very traditional Indian fare and it is now but it's only is because of some very bad reasons so [Music] around the 1860s the Navajo ended up basically interned at muskie Redondo there's a really shitty experience they basically arrested in March like 5000 Navajo 300 miles and then gave them nothing and no food and no shelter and an incredibly harsh winter people are dying of freezing to death ml nourishment and the rations that were provided when they were we're typically flour that was full of weevils and oil often gone somewhat rancid and if there was beef it was salted beef that had been cured and it was rancid and maybe stolen or extorted or you know snuck off by soldiers who are supposed to be dispensing it and the only thing you can do with this flour because it's full of weevils and oil is kind of mix them up together and make a fried bread say which is absolute that was like totally foreign to the Navajo at that point that was nothing that had ever been in their diet before that doesn't look like wheat to me that's not wheat country there's no wheat out here we was provided because it was the cheapest thing that the US government could supply as some sort of alleged ration to the Navajo yep and this is what you can do with it now unfortunately this stuff is super high-calorie and you know what I think getting getting used to a diet of this is no good for Navajo health if you're well this is not just Navajo this is a problem that transcends all of the reservations and the rations that were doled out to be on the reservation we're typically extremely low quality if not inedible quality and so things like fried bread became the way to fix the problem please turn what you were given edible if you're a hunter-gatherer society and used to go out and harvest game and gather food and then you're given wheat that is inedible or gone wrong and then you fry it to make it edible what you're now eating is a high carb caloric intake fat induced thing which has nothing to do with your dietary methods or cultural heritage whatsoever and so when you look across almost all Indian tribes this is like Donuts yep pretty much but this became the staple food reading doughnut as your primary source of sustenance but you look across almost all Indian tribes there are very very high incidence rates of diabetes yep it'll be bad huge will be City huge IV diabetes and these the cultures were not used to eating this and not only not eating this but not eating really bad versions of this but since all the tribes were given this it was what you were please don't please you are stuck on this place there's a fence around it don't leave if you leave we'll kill you here's the food you're allowed to eat because we'll give it to you if we even give it to you and then when you get it it's bad go ahead and eat it and then it gives you diabetes and obesity because this isn't the society you lived in we have an ongoing legacy of what was happening back in the 1800s still goes on today you go around and you will see unfortunately the repercussions of this which was not that long ago still existent on most reservations and let's be fair or anyone eating it there are people today who subsist on a diet of takeout pizza and doughnuts that's true and they have the same problems why if you look at indigenous people up in Alaska hmm who have a diet that consists including a lot of say seal fat they'd like straight-up fat and and I have a metabolism and a digestive system that's itself selected to to handle that they've done it for forever yeah that is their diet if you took them and handed them any massively changed diet you're going to have some serious health issues goes with every culture but I agree with you no one should eat this as their main source not the meats fine and the green Chili's great in the corns okay but that fry bread is something you should not sustain yourself on if you lived entirely on Winchell's donuts for from the rest of your life your life is going to be diminished dramatically yeah but um it's really it's really simple cooking and I have to say this mutton stew is really good I like it nice yeah and the dumplings are good and this is really yummy you know and the fried bread by the way which is not made from weave will induce Transat horrible week we hope no I'm sure it isn't but it's a very tasty it really is palatable and good it's just high caloric not good for you stuff right it ought to be a treat not a staple it's a doughnut another piece less sure thanks so anyway guys I mean this is kind of off the beaten track well literally off the beaten track at a little shack in the Navajo res we thought it'd be interesting to bring to you not only a little bit of history kind of an old Westman yet a little bit but also just a little bit of tasting history in terms of mutton stew and grilled lamb and what that comes from and how the Navajo have that become part of their now cultural legacy and heritage I love translation who doesn't love green chile this is like the best food ever invented well ever grown anyways thanks for watching appreciate it

Channel: InRangeTV

Views: 147,977

Rating: 4.9624496 out of 5

Keywords: navajo, old west, old west vignette, bosque redondo, fort sumner, long walk, fry bread, mutton, stew, grilled lamb, indian, reservation, taste test, tasting history, mccollum, inrangetv, kasarda, forgotten weapons, old west vignette/tasting history, navajo food, Najavo food culture, mutton stew, Navajo reservation, little road, parcel, lamb, T-shirts

Id: yPshjlb-aok

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Sat May 27 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/ij3k]

its.