Every Summer of My Life

The (Sojourns Café
menu
winter/spring 08
eating
on the
colorado
plateau
Entrees
The Mind of Corn
A rumination on the meaning of the mother grain by Craig Childs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Breads of Home Hopi and Navajo breads have the taste of native life, by Anne Minard . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Milepost Eateries Mary Garland designs an edible tour of the Colorado Plateau. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Dutch Oven Cooking An estimble pioneer cooking method has long fed the West. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Mormon Foodways
Canning, every summer of a girl’s life, by Elaine Thatcher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Special (for Two) –
Peter Friederici interviews Gary Nabhan on sustainable eating on the Colorado Plateau
(served with Grilled Juniper-Garlic Lamb and a side of Wild Greens Pie) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Sides
(try ‘em all!)
– How commercial dent corn
MUERTOS – Poet Logan Phillips’s ofrenda is a paen to
has infiltrated the economy and why ethanol uses more
petroleum energy than it can replace, by Christopher
Eaton . . . . 10
El Dia de Los Muertos, The Day of the Dead, celebrated
by Hispanics everywhere . . . 38
P LAIN C O RN TA L K
MEAT FOR THE TABLE – Hunting supper the oldSUNDAY DINNER – Carol Edison recounts Sunday
dinner in a Mormon household, with piccalilli . . . 34
A DAIRY IN THE DESERT – Lyman Hafen
describes the delicious origins of Pipe Spring National
Monument . . . . 37
fashioned way in New Mexico’s Valles Caldera with
Stephen Maurer. . . . 46
The Mind of Corn
Craig Childs
Among the Hopi, corn is a god, an ancient mother.
It is said to be sentient, a being in itself.
It knows things.
It remembers.
I would not argue this. Botany has
neither confirmed nor denied consciousness in those things that
lean toward the sun. I wonder, though, if modern corn that lies
across Iowa in eternal rows can recall the desert where it once
grew, or the highlands of southern Mexico where it was first
born. It was wild teosinte grass 10,000 years ago, and was then
engineered and cultivated into a staple by Mayans, Incans, and the
Mound Builders of the Mississippi. It became a Pueblo mainstay
in the Southwest, and from there its genes cataracted into patents
and industries, fodder for corn syrup and oils that supply a major
segment of the world’s diet. This new corn grown in the Midwest
cannot be planted deep in sand to drink hidden moisture as its
ancestors once did. Its grain matures cartoonishly lush by virtue
of synthetic fertilizer and loamy soil. Does it remember the taste
of red sand, the pounding hooves of a flash flood in the desert?
(
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08 ) The Breads of Home
Anne Minard
J
ennifer Joseph of Hotevilla shared
this recipe. Someviki is usually
served with a bean dish, hominy
and meat stew, or greens such as wild
spinach.
Hopi Someviki
5 rounded tablespoons chamisa or other
cooking ash (2 teaspoons baking soda
can be substituted if cooking ash is not
W
e stood close to one another on a dirt floor, white tourists trying
to memorize the looks and meanings of the Hopi man’s handcarved Katsina dolls. They were laid out on a table and they were
for sale. On the other side of the small room, the man’s teenage
daughter oiled a flat stone. She was so quiet she might have been
alone in the room. But she was preparing to demonstrate the
making of piki bread, a Hopi nutritional and cultural staple.
The girl settled before the piki stone. It was hot enough now. She oiled it again and again,
then stirred bluish-gray batter in a bowl: blue cornmeal, ash, and water. Using her fingers, she
spread the batter thinly on the stone. If the stone burned her fingers, she made no sign of it. Slowly,
the top layer of batter cooked and billowed off the top, thinner than paper. She rolled it loosely and
handed it to a watching tourist. At first the people standing near shared the rolls, taking little bits
and passing them on. The girl said nothing. She made roll after roll of the thin food, and soon the
tourists—all watching now—stopped sharing.
The Anglos chewed studiously. Most didn’t hum with rapture when they tasted the bread; it
was plain. A few pieces fell to the dirt floor.
The piki maker’s uncle, our tour guide, came and stood over her shoulder. In Hopi culture,
the uncles are the disciplinarians—the girl’s younger sister had disappeared at the sight of him. The
teenager kept quiet as he delivered the customary ribbing: You can make piki? Be careful you don’t
get anybody sick. Eventually, he let fly a compliment: it’s good.
Corn people
In Hopi culture, piki making is a rite of passage for girls. “At a certain time in your life when
you’re a young girl, you get taught how to make these Hopi foods,” explained Jennifer Joseph, a
tribal member from Hotevilla. “You go through a ceremony as a young girl to learn how to make
these. That’s preparing you for marriage later on.”
Piki, like most traditional Hopi bread foods, is made not from white or wheat flour but
from corn. And corn itself is inseparable from the tribe, its history and its spirit. The Hopis are
not alone in this. Corn defines multiple aspects of the lives of Southwestern tribes, including the
Navajo and the Zuni. Corn is mother, healer, enabler, and transformer. In Hopi and Zuni, the seven
colors of corn are linked with different directions: yellow for north, blue for west, red for south,
and white for east, all colors (speckled) for the zenith and black for the nadir. In the Diné culture,
corn is especially prized for its pollen, valued for its healing properties. Marcia Keegan wrote in
her Southwest Indian Cookbook that when tiny pollen grains are incorporated in a sand painting,
that painting assumes healing powers. Such paintings are made in honor of sick people so that they
might heal.
Corn defines multiple aspects of the lives of Southwestern tribes, including the Navajo
and Zuni. Corn is mother, healer, enabler, and transformer.
available, but flavor is better with ash)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
5 cups finely ground roasted blue
cornmeal
1 cup granulated sugar or more to taste
4 cups boiling water, more or less (must
be boiling)
30 corn husks (If using corn husks from
the grocery store be sure to soak
them in hot water, drain, and repeat as
necessary, before the final soak.)
1. Soak clean corn husks in very hot water 10
to 15 minutes.
2. Mix ash with 1 1/2 cups boiling water and
set aside. NOTE: If using soda, omit water
and add soda directly to flour.
3.Put flour and sugar into a bowl that will be
able to stand hot water.
3. Add boiling water to the flour (2 cups to
begin with) and work with a wooden spoon.
Pour the ash water through a strainer into
the bowl until the dough is consistently blue
in color. Add more hot water if necessary.
4. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dough
is cool enough to handle. Knead the dough
until it has a clay-like consistency.
5. Put 2 heaping tablespoons of dough on
each corn husk and fold husks around
dough, sides first and then the short end,
then the top. Tie with shredded corn husks.
Your someviki should resemble a miniature
tamale, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter by 3
inches long.
6. Drop the husk-wrapped dough into a large
pot of boiling water. Water must be rolling.
7. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Take one
out and test it by cooling and unwrapping
it to see if it will keep its form. If cooking is
finished, drain the someviki. Serves 10 to 15
people with two breads each.
Facing: Mardelle Shingoitewa and Cary grinding
corn for piki. Mishongnovi Village, Second Mesa,
1944. Cline Library Special Collections and Archives
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Milepost Eateries
a food lover’s tour of the Colorado Plateau
by Mary Garland
A
h the grandeur
of the Colorado
Plateau—a feast
for the eyes.
Endless slickrock
canyons beckon
travelers of
every stripe,
from window-seat RV’ers to backpackers and
climbers. But even the most Spartan admit to
the joys of a really good meal at the end of the
day. Until recently, culinary oases were few
and far between. Now travelers on the Grand
Circle Tour can skip the fast food and indulge
in more creative, wholesome fare. How did
it happen? Who are the inspired characters
who had the courage and perseverence to
open these eateries? What motivated and what
sustains them? Their addresses are often given
in milemarkers along remote highways. They
are often open seasonally, responding both
to weather and the tourist migration through
these hinterlands. They face distinctive
challenges, from staffing to sourcing. But they
are there, and you can meet them on a lassoshaped “milepost gourmet tour” around the
Colorado Plateau.
•
First stop is The Rocking V Café in
Kanab, Utah, gateway to the Grand Staircase–
Escalante National Monument and a town
now resurrecting from its former life as a
Western movie set. Vicki and Victor Cooper,
“the Rocking Vs,” married in Zion National
Park some twenty years ago, and eventually a
mutual love of the area lured them back. Vicki
opened the café in April 1999 on West Center
Street in an old brick mercantile whose floors
still creak and whose storefront windowpanes
maintain a charming wobble. Victor joined
her three years later to run the front of the
house, leaving, as Vicki had, a lucrative job in
the television industry.
Vicki’s homemade desserts are
legendary, her soups and salads inventive and
satisfying, and, like the best of the outback
eateries, The Rocking V stewards its locale.
Water is served only on request. Empty sixpack holders from Polygamy Porter, the V’s
most popular brew, are always recycled. Victor
saves corks for the home he plans to build
one day. The V also nurtures regional artistic
talent: The café walls are filled with paintings,
photographs, and wall sculpture. An upstairs
sales gallery is jam-packed with more.
In remote corners of the Colorado Plateau, dedicated chefs are blending
new ideas with old traditions and folding in local ingredients, creating
plate-sized adventures for hungry passersby.
Two-person pies at historic Gifford House,
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Capitol Reef National Park. Photo by Paula Jansen.
Photo courtesy of The Rocking V.
Dutch Oven Cooking
The Humble Black Pot
The humble black pot we know as the Dutch oven goes so far back in
history that its origin is unclear. But we do know that its precursor arrived
in America as cargo on the Mayflower. Lewis and Clark listed the Dutch
Mary Garland and her husband
Gary have co-owned and managed
Garland’s Lodge for 35 years, exploring
the Colorado Plateau widely from their
well-known retreat in Oak Creek Canyon.
Their travels have introduced them to
passionate culinary professionals who
are devoted to developing a new take on
regional cuisine. Mary is co-author, with
chef Amanda Stine, of Sharing the Table
at Garland’s Lodge.
season. Amanda Stine, Garland’s head chef for over twenty-five years, creates one delicious
menu for fifty guests nightly, building it on each season’s organic fruits and vegetables, hers
for the plucking from the property’s orchards and gardens. Her consistent quality and everevolving style have been a major boon to the Lodge’s popularity. Everything is made fresh
daily, from bread to soup to dressings to desserts. After decades of daily recipe requests from
diners from town and lodge guests, recently Amanda and Lodge owners Gary and Mary
Garland shared their stories and recipes in the book Sharing the Table at Garland’s Lodge.
The chefs whose food we enjoyed form a bright constellation amid many points of light;
with time and a looser belt we might have sampled the dishes of many others. What do they
share? Love of the landscape and a spacious lifestyle are threads weaving through the lives
and stories of all the chefs we met. Like the ancient geologic forces that shaped the Colorado
Plateau, they too are raising the level of the land—lifting the necessity for nourishment to
sensory celebration. The remoteness of their locations requires resourcefulness, resilience, and
commitment—no dashing out to the corner store for a mango and some Tuscan prosciutto.
But amid the hard-boned reality of the land they love, they are warming a hearth for all who
may come.
oven as an essential provision on their great trek across an unknown land in
the early 1800s. Mountain man Jim Bridger swore by his, and the versatile
vessel topped the list of “must have” equipment for pioneers heading west in
wagon trains. Once considered valuable enough to be included in wills, these
durable utensils were passed down through generations of kin.
Imagine the savory smells that rose from those pots over the
centuries. The anticipation with which hungry mouths hovered nearby. The
settings in which they bubbled over an open fire, promising sustenance.
Many people who enjoy western traditions find Dutch-oven
cooking a pleasurable way to serve up delicious food at outdoor gatherings,
campouts, or celebrations. Utah is known as the Dutch Oven Capital of the
World; more Dutch ovens are sold there than in any other state. In 1997,
Utah designated the Dutch oven the official State Cooking Pot.
The Rocking V
Vicki and Victor Cooper, chef/owners
97 W. Center St., Kanab UT 84741
435.644.8001 / www.rockingvcafé.com
Café Diablo
Gary Pankow, chef/owner
599 W. Main, Torrey UT 84775
435.425.3070 / www.cafédiablo.net
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
Jim Martin, chef
23390 Road K, Cortez, CO 81321
800.422.8975 / www.crowcanyon.org
Brix Restaurant and Wine Bar
Paul and Laura Moir/Laura Chamberlain,
chef/owners
Kiva Koffee House
Hwy 12, mile marker 73.86,
Escalante UT 84726
435.826.4550 / www.kivakoffeehouse.
com
Caineville Farm and Mesa Farm Market
Debra and Randy Ramsley
HC 70 Box 160, Caineville, Utah 84775
435.456.9146 / www.mesafarmmarket.
com
The Metate Room at Mesa Verde
Todd Halnier, executive chef
P.O. Box 8 , Mesa Verde CO 81330
970.529.4465 / www.visitmesaverde.com
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
P.O. Box 152, Sedona AZ 86339
Hell’s Backbone Grill
Jen Castle and Blake Spalding, chef/
owners
No. 20 North Highway 12, P.O. Box 1428
Boulder, Utah 84716
435.335.7464/
www.hellsbackbonegrill.com
Buck’s Grill House
Tim Buckingham, chef/owner
1393 N. Highway 191, Moab UT 84532
435.259.5201 / www.bucksgrillhouse.com
The Turquoise Room at La Posada
John and Patricia Sharpe, chef/owners
305 E. Second St., Winslow, AZ 86047
928.289.2888 /
www.theturquoiseroom.net
413 N. San Francisco St.,
928.213.1021 / www.brixflagstaff.com
Garland’s Lodge
There’s virtually no limit to the delectable dishes that can be
prepared in a Dutch oven—roasts, steaks, poultry, vegetables, stews, soups,
casseroles, breads, desserts. All you need are a few coals, a few tools, and an
adventurous nature to connect with the sights, smells, and tastes of a fine old
cooking tradition.
Amanda Stine, chef
928.282.3343 / www.garlandslodge.com
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A traditional Mormon pantry is a picture of providence and order,
where the fruits of the past are preserved for the future. Two LDS cooks
reminisce on the practice of storing away summer.
Every Summer of My Life
B y E l a i n e T h a tc h e r
E
very summer of my
life, I sit with paring
knife surrounded by
bowls piled high with
fruit. Peaches, apples,
cherries, apricots, pears, and plums all are
committed to mason jars in a steaming
kitchen during the dog days of summer.
When I was young we would open the
windows wide to let in whatever cooling
breeze might happen by, but an open
window also posed danger for the jars hot
out of the canner—the cool air could crack
a jar and waste a whole quart of our labors.
So we took the heat in stride.
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W e d i d n ’ t s t o p at f r u i t. When I was young, we put up green beans
in steel cans. Later, we switched to freezing the vegetables. My mother also made
pints of jams and jellies; our favorite was her special peach-pear marmalade with
pineapple and maraschino cherries. I could almost finish a whole pint by myself on
Mom’s homemade white bread. (I never found my mother’s marmalade recipe after
she died, so I recently searched the Internet for something close, then adapted it. It
disappeared just as fast as hers did, but I’m still tinkering to get it right.)
The jars of fruits and vegetables were carefully carried to the basement “fruit
room,” where shelves on every wall were lined with jewel-colored containers of
home-bottled foods. In addition to home-preserved items, we also stocked up on
groceries—flour, sugar, shortening, canned vegetables, and more—and stored them
in the fruit room as well.
As a child my trips to the fruit room were dangerous adventures! I had to
walk down the cement steps (avoiding spiders) and dash past the furnace which, I
was sure, could attack me, then carefully reach around the doorjamb and turn on
the fruit room light to scare away monsters before I would dare step in, grab the
bottle or can my mother wanted, then, switching off the light, run madly back to
the stairs and up to the safety of the kitchen.
Storing food for use in winter, drought, unemployment, or other lean times
is a practice that has been taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(the Mormon or LDS Church) since its earliest days. Faithful Mormons plan what
might be needed to keep their families alive in an emergency, storing basics like
wheat, sugar, and dry milk, as well as favorites such as bottled peaches, spaghetti
sauce, and instant pudding.
Of course, whether a modern American family would want to eat such fare
is an issue for Mormon cooks. A frequent topic of discussion in Relief Society
(the women’s organization of the church) is how to use foods in rotation within
the home storage plan. A story that appeared in a church publication years ago
illustrates the dilemma: A Mormon mother had been learning to cook with whole
wheat in order to rotate her supply and to be prepared for any emergency use of it.
The family had endured whole wheat bread, cracked wheat cereal, wheat berries in
meat loaf, and more. One day she bought some fresh eggs from a farmer, and the
eggs happened to be brown. Her five-year-old son took one look and said, “Oh, no!
Not whole wheat eggs!”
Many Mormon foodways are rooted in stored food technology—whatever
you can make from canned, dried, or frozen resources is a recipe to value. There is
even a recipe for a cake that uses bottled fruit past its prime. Waste not, want not.
A corollary to the principle of storing food is that of producing it. The
church emphasizes self-sufficiency. This includes getting an education in order to
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Sense of Taste, Sense of Place
A conversation with Gary Paul Nabhan
with Peter Friederici
F
rom the Salmon Nation of the Pacific Northwest to the Gumbo
Nation of the Gulf Coast, there’s a quiet food revolution going
on. It’s spurred in equal measures by growing concerns about
the health and environmental costs of many conventional
foods and by a deep pleasure in the rediscovery of local foods
and flavors. Its effects are evident at an increasing number of
restaurants, farmers’ markets, and stores where you can buy and savor not just
organically produced or heirloom vegetables, but an array of foods produced
locally, by farmers or ranchers who are identifiable and not anonymous.
On the Colorado Plateau, where he’s been living for the past seven years on
the border of Chile Pepper Nation and Piñon Nut Nation, Gary Paul Nabhan
has been a powerful voice for the virtues of local and regional food production.
Nabhan is a writer, ethnobotanist, and activist who is perhaps best known for
his writing about and work in the Sonoran Desert region, where he founded the
heirloom seeds conservancy Native Seeds/SEARCH and wrote a book, Coming
Home to Eat, about a year-long experiment in eating regionally produced foods.
From 2001 to 2007, Nabhan directed Northern Arizona University’s Center for
Sustainable Environments, where he spearheaded numerous initiatives to promote
the production and use of lamb, beef, dairy products, and fruits and vegetables
in the region. He currently serves as founder and facilitator for the Renewing
America’s Food Traditions collaborative. You can read more about his work at www.
garynabhan.com.
Nabhan might be considered a vertically integrated activist, equally
comfortable talking about large-scale food-production trends and his own hard-
Pioneer Orchard in the Fruita district
of Capitol Reef National Park. Photo by
Paula Jansen
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08 ) 
won experience in raising Navajo Churro sheep, native amaranths, and other foods.
Flagstaff writer Peter Friederici recently spoke with him about both.
Meat for the Table
B y St e p h e n M a u r e r
T
he piece of elk meat I am about to unwrap is marked Ham Roast, 3 lbs, Oct.
2006, and my initials, SGM, distinguish it from my wife’s elk shot the previous
year (Oct. 2005, LDM). I remove the butcher paper, then the clear plastic we
used when we butchered and wrapped the meat last fall, and I pause to admire
the dark red meat, savor that unmistakable game smell that rises from it, and
think of the place in New Mexico where I have hunted for several years. In my
mind’s eye I see that very elk in the fading evening light when my son and I first spotted it a half mile
away—a pale beige spot against the dark green conifers at the edge Valle Jaramillo in New Mexico’s
Valles Caldera National Preserve.
And I reflect on how lucky my family and I have been because one of us has drawn an elk
tag on the Valles Caldera at least once during the past five years. We have become familiar with
the preserve’s terrain, its wildlife, and its rich history. But most importantly, we have met the
hunters: men, women, and youngsters from all walks of life, residents and non-residents, sharing a
tremendous appreciation for the land and an equal measure of respect for their quarry.
The Valles Caldera is a spectacular 1.25-million-year-old volcanic crater, roughly twelve square
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miles in size. It occupies the central portion of the Jemez Mountains which abuts the Colorado
Plateau in north-central New Mexico. This 89,000-acre former sheep and cattle ranch was acquired
by the federal government in the year 2000 and added to the nation’s inventory of public lands.
Although surrounded by Santa Fe National Forest, the preserve is administered separately by an
independent government corporation called the Valles Caldera Trust, with its own board of trustees.
The trust represents a bold new experiment in public land management, with the ultimate goal of
making the preserve self-supporting by 2015.
Hunting is an important activity in the management of the Valles Caldera just as it was in the
preserve’s past, long before the arrival of the Spanish to New Mexico in the 16th century. Native
hunters frequented the area, not only for the abundant game but also for its rich outcroppings of
obsidian which could be fashioned into arrowheads, spear points, and cutting tools. Spanish settlers
also supplemented their diet with game from the surrounding Jemez Mountains as did Anglo
homesteaders after New Mexico became part of the United States.
As in other places throughout the West, the hunting tradition is strong in the villages of New
Mexico. “I started going hunting with my dad when I was about ten years old,” recalls Valles Caldera
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Photos of Valles Caldera National Preserve
by Rourke McDermott
More information about the Valles Caldera
National Preserve is available at www.
vallescaldera.gov.
stephen maurer is a native of Hungary
and implements special projects for the
Public Lands Interpretive Association based
in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
www.publiclands.org