The foods of Native California Books such as Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider give invaluable insight into how Native American people created food from what flourished around them: food that is simple, abundant and, most of all, flavorful food that is both life-giving and a way of life. Richard Hetzler, Executive Chef, Mitsitam Cafe, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution Starting with fish and then moving on through shellfish, meat, vegetables, flowers, berries, nuts, and acorns, Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider is a tour of the most authentically local food there is: Native American cuisine, in this case from the bountiful shores and slopes of California. Filled with photographs, essays, reminiscences, and recipes, this book offers an overview of the foods of Native California along with delicious details about the dishes and their preparation: seafood stew cooked on the beach, agave hearts roasted underground, cakes made from the tiny seeds of the prolific red maids flower. Many of the recipes in Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider appear in print for the first time here, offering glimpses of the past as well as straightforward information on the preparation of simple and sumptuous foods. Dubin and Tolley write in their introduction that the recipes in this book are transcriptions from tribal and personal memory and, as such, fragments of living culture. Part culinary study, part history and cultural chronicle, this book is a fascinating presentation of a venerable American food cuisine.
Raised in West Los Angeles, in her youth the California writer, Sylvia Ross, worked as a cell painter for Walt Disney Productions in Burbank. Later, her family moved to the Central Valley where she earned a degree at FSU. For many years she taught in a school attended by the children from the Tule River Indian Reservation, finding it a good fit. Through her mother's lineage, Ross is a Yokuts Indian descendant.
She is the author of two cultural children's books: LION SINGER, 2005 and BLUE JAY GIRL, 2010. She is also the author of the adult works: ACORNS AND ABALONE, a small collection of writing and drawings, 2011, and the novel, ACTS OF KINDNESS, ACTS OF CONTRITION, 2011.
Her work is published in a number of anthologies: THE DIRT IS RED HERE, 2002; SPRING SALMON, HURRY TO ME, 2008; THE ILLUMINATED LANDSCAPE, A Sierra Nevada Anthology, 2010; LEAVES FROM THE VALLEY OAK, 2011; and she contributed to the Native cookbook, SEAWEED, SALMON, AND MANZANITA CIDER, 2008. She gives frequent readings of her work at venues in her home state and had work featured in the touring exhbit, SING ME YOUR STORY, DANCE ME HOME, 2008-2011.
