[upbeat folk music]
- Thank you so much for cooking lunch for us today.
- Thank you for asking me.
- I'm excited to try this white corn soup
'cause this is something that's--
- It's part of our history.
It's part of our culture, is what it is.
- Okay, 'cause this white corn, this is the Oneida white corn?
- Yes, this is the Oneida white corn, yes.
This is part of us.
This has been with us for thousands of years.
- Oh, I'm so excited.
- The recipe, from what I know, has stayed the same,
and that's the process of taking the corn,
boiling it, adding wood ash to take the hulls off,
adding beans, and sometimes a protein.
- Inga: So that's what you were doing outside on the fire.
- Arlie: That's what we were doing on the fire, in the rain.
- I'm glad that you were out there instead of me.
- It got a little wet, but we're good.
- And you did this all in this beautiful pot.
- In the clay pot.
This is pre-contact, before we had the metal pots.
For me, it's important to reconnect,
have that reconnection to our foods.
Brings a whole new flavor to the traditional corn soup
that we would make on the stove in a pot.
- I love what you're saying,
because you're not only reconnecting
with your ancestors through the ingredients,
but also through the cooking process.
- These are all parts of what we are, and who we are,
and they each serve a purpose,
and they each have a responsibility and a duty.
Even the shape of how the pot was cooked.
If you remember over the fire,
I was able to grab this even though it was on the fire.
That's all part of using the clay pot, which I use.
Again now, there's a different flavor that comes in
into this whole process as well.
I've learned that, while cooking it in the metal pot,
you can get some really good flavor,
some real good corn soup,
there's just an added flavor that happens with the clay pot.
- For sure.
I suppose it's like cast iron or something,
you know, how my grandmother passed on her cast iron pan
for generations, and they said we should never clean it.
- Yes.
- I'm not sure about that. [laughing]
- To an extent, to an extent.
The clay pots are the same way.
This isn't something you're gonna put in a dish machine.
- Yeah. - You know, a good wiping out.
But that's how we've had them.
Imagine, if you will, being in the longhouse,
and under that smoke hole where the fires were,
were large pots of these, clay pots,
maybe two or three of them,
and grandma or aunties were always cooking in them.
They stayed there, usually until the whole community
was ready to move. - Okay.
- And at that time, then they would take them and move them.
But these things were probably sitting in the fire for,
one maybe it had corn soup in it,
one may have had a fish soup in it,
one may have had just vegetables or beans cooking in it.
But at some point, in that longhouse,
we had the clay pots just sitting there.
- And now you've got the turkey,
and that's been cooking in with all the other ingredients.
- Yes, it has.
So from the process that we had, after the corn was cooked,
after it was hulled with the wood ash,
after it was rinsed, then we add the beans.
Cranberry beans is what I prefer,
usually out of my garden.
Otherwise, from the store,
you can get the kidney beans or small red beans.
The meat that I've used is a smoked turkey meat.
Smoked meat is one of our traditional ways of preserving,
smoking and drying.
That goes in, and I prefer the legs,
sometimes I'll be able to get the thigh meat,
just for the bone and for the flavor.
- Inga: For the flavor.
- And once it's heated up and it's cooked further,
you'll see that I was able to take it off the bone.
We'll chop it and then we'll put it in,
get it back on the fire, bring it back up to temperature,
and by then, we should just about be ready to go.
- What does it mean for you
to be able to have the same ingredients as your ancestors,
and also pass that down to the next generation?
- It means everything.
When we talk about some of our history, our current history,
we kind of got away from this.
We were using the pork.
Pork was introduced to us from the Europeans.
so we would use smoked pork hocks, they would use hams,
they would use any kind of fresh pork for this soup.
As I was learning, and I was doing my research,
and I found out the different meats that went in there,
and the different proteins that we use,
turkey seemed to be the example for,
like a everyday soup.
Different proteins were added for different reasons,
but the turkey, and maybe a fish,
I've even see recipes with a fish in it.
Those were the meats that were used in our diet.
- Well, Arlie, the guys are coming in from outside
and I know, I've been watching them work all day,
luckily, I've just had to watch them,
so I can imagine how hungry they are.
Should we go serve them lunch?
- We can serve them lunch. - Great.
[The Oneida Longhouse Singers performing moccasin dance song]
Well, I hope this has inspired you
to search out ingredients in your area,
and I hope you'll gather with us next time,
- In unison: Around the Farm Table!
- I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
Thank you, guys, so much.
[upbeat folk music]