Arts & Entertainment

Review: 'Spirit of the Harvest' cookbook offers Native recipes





"When a cookbook is re-issued these days, it often means it was a recent raging sales success, has been revamped for a different continent, or is now being offered in a new language. But when it's been twenty years, as is the case with Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking it's usually the recipes that make a re-issue worth a second look.

Here, the recipes appear largely untouched. A good thing, as this is an excellent, and timeless, cookbook. Well, perhaps other than the photographs. Though a press release describes the photos as "stunning," we would be inclined to (politely) call them a bit dated. These are the sort of studio still life assemblages that involve things like a roast goose surrounded by carefully placed crab apples, with faux rock cliffs in the foreground and a sand-colored painted backdrop. A photo of salmon steaks grilled in the style of the Gitksan Tribe (with juniper berries over alder wood) is so disturbingly perfect, it looks like the distance between juniper berries may actually have been measured in millimeters. You get the idea."

Get the Story:
A Spirit of the Harvest Cookbook Revival A Cheyenne Sausage Recipe For Bride Hunters (LA Weekly 9/8)

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