I have been thinking about Hispanic History month and the genius of Indigenous foodways. For example, serving tortillas with beans had a nutritional and practical benefit because one could easily pick up the beans with the tortillas similarly how West Africans used foo foo to eat soups and stews and obtain necessary nutrients. Tortillas and beans and beans and toasted squash seeds accompanied with onion and chilies greens represented a common combination in the Mayan and Aztec world that bordered each other. Reminiscent of the Mesoamerican tamale, the Choctaw women of Mississippi folded beans, white potatoes, and hickory smoked meat and into cornmeal masa or dough, wrapped the mixture in shucks of corn, and boiled them to make their staple bread they called bunaha. More tomorrow.
