
A vegetable-rich diet had been common among Native Americans for centuries. Even the Paleoindians, despite their reputation as big-game hunters, probably received most of their daily nutrition from gathering. This predominantly vegetable diet was particularly characteristic of the Archaic period, during which Indian groups made yearly rounds of hunting and gathering sites for seasonal foods. Late in Archaic times there was a slow move to rudimentary horticulture of local food plants such as lambsquarters, sunflowers, and (perhaps) squash. Horticulture intensified in the Woodland period, and most Native American populations began living in villages near their fields. In about AD 800, corn and beans spread from Mexico into the Mississippi Valley, and by about AD 1000, the Mississippian culture was established in Alabama.
The Three Sisters

Beans were an excellent protein source and added additional nutrients to the diet. In addition to green beans, consumed in their tender husks, speckled, kidney, and white beans were the most common varieties. When dried, beans were stripped from their husks and stored in baskets, gourds, and ceramic pots. Fresh green beans were snapped and strung with a needle and thread. Dried in the rafters of the house, these strings of beans were called "leather-britches" by Europeans. They were put into water and reconstituted by lengthy cooking with a bit of fat or meat added for flavor—perhaps the origin of the southern custom of overcooked green beans. Beans were cooked, dried, mixed with cornmeal, or even ground to make bean meal or flour.

Fresh corn was mixed with beans, squash, and other ingredients to make vegetable stews. Corn flour and meal was mixed with bear fat and cooked on a hot hearth rock to make cakes. The most common southeastern Indian dish was a thick cracked-corn soup called sofkee. A large pot of sofkee almost always stood by most home fires, and everyone was invited to reach into it with a ladle-like wooden spoon and eat their fill. Sofkee often had other ingredients, like pieces of meat or fish, in which case it was called sofkee-nitkee—"sofkee with bits."
It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of corn in southeastern Indian life. Corn (properly maize) was introduced into the Mississippi Valley from Mexico about AD 800. It was a revolutionary food that for the first time allowed Native Americans (who had been practicing rudimentary horticulture for several thousand years) to store up reliable food surpluses. The resulting leap in population and cultural complexity became known as the Mississippian period, which dominated the Southeast and Midwest until after the European conquest. Indeed, even after the collapse of the Mississippian culture in the sixteenth century, the historic Indian diet was substantially the same as the Mississippian diet.
Native American Agriculture

Hunting and fishing supplemented the main diet. Meat provided additional protein and nutritive variety and was greatly sought, but it was not as prevalent a part of the traditional southeastern Indian diet as it is in the modern American diet. It was, however, an important activity for men and boys, allowing them to acquire extra food and accrue status and training for warfare. Deer, turkeys, small birds and mammals, fish, mussels, crayfish, and turtles found their way into the pot. Deer meat, an important food, also was dried into jerky on racks over smoky fires.
Despite falling into disrepute in modern times, fat was and remains an important part of the diet. Although deer meat is an excellent source of protein, it has little fat. Bears, on the other hand, boast large amounts of fat and were highly prized. They were hunted in special areas set aside for that purpose in the fall when they were at their fattest. Early European traders and visitors agreed that bear ribs, barbequed and dripping with fat, were the best meat on the frontier. Bear fat was carefully collected and saved. Traditionally, it was the most important source of cooking oil and had numerous other uses, including paint-mixing and repelling mosquitoes when spread on the skin.


Sweets were generally an imported treat. Brown sugar, syrup, and molasses are derived from African sugar cane. Honey became common only after honeybees were introduced to America from Europe. Edible melons and cucumbers are native to the Old World but came to America early. Cucumbers and watermelons (originally with white flesh) were common in historic Indian gardens.
As people of African and European descent adopted Native American foods, so did Native Americans adopt African and European foods. Today, the typical modern Indian diet has come to be characterized by many of the unhealthy aspects of the mainstream American diet. Because modern Indian groups tend to be poor, their diets resemble those of poor blacks and whites, meaning that they tend to be heavy in fats and starches, with all the concomitant dangers of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Indeed, the disproportionate prevalence of diabetes in the Indian population may have its roots in the introduction of fatty meats into to a population long adapted to a low-fat diet. Leaders of several Indian nations in the United States have advocated a return to traditional foods as a means to combat these ills.
Modern southern diets include a broad selection of Indian dishes. Hominy, grits, sweet potatoes, and many other foods are the legacy of the region's Indian peoples. Indeed, the "traditional" American thanksgiving dinner of turkey, cornmeal stuffing, green beans, wild rice, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin pie, grits, cornbread, green beans, pinto beans, tomatoes and peppers all come from Native Americans.
Additional Resources
Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.
Additional Resources
Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.