Soup season is here in New Mexico, and many folks are cooking up their favorite New Mexico recipes. Among the state’s culinary landscape are soups from Native American Pueblos that primarily feature ingredients local to the state prior to European contact.
Patricia Perea is the co-author of the “Pueblo Food Experience” cookbook with Roxanne Swentzell from Santa Clara Pueblo. She says when using ingredients native to New Mexico, it’s important to follow the seasons.
“When it comes to the winter, you're going to get the hardier stuff, because it's hunting season right now,” Perea said. “So this is when we would go out and be hunting for deer, rabbit, elk, and turkeys.”
The summertime is when more vegetarian soups are on the menu, and when ingredients like squash, quelites (wild spinach), and purslane are in season. When the season shifts to autumn, the harvest begins, including gathering piñons and drying chiles to last through the winter.
Perea said that many foods that have been historically eaten by Pueblo people are now considered “superfoods,” like sunflower seeds and amaranth. Many of these soups and stews also feature the three sisters: corn, squash, and beans, which Perea says contain most of the nutrients a person would need and was the base of the Pueblo diet.
While these are staples in any grocery store, finding other local ingredients can be difficult even in Pueblos. Perea said that she’s had the most success at farmers markets, co-ops, and with local initiatives like the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project, a nonprofit working to create greater access to Bison meat.
Classic New Mexico favorites like green chile stew and posole have similar roots to Pueblo soups and stews, but they also have ingredients that aren’t native to New Mexico like beef and pork, or even red and green chiles from Mesoamerica.
“Whenever I make green chile stew, I tend to make it with elk or deer,” Perea said.
The reality is that every part of the year is an opportunity to cook with the seasons and make a bowl of soup with what's available. Perea urges people looking to cook with the seasons this year to look back at their own ancestry to find inspiration for what to cook up next.
“Really think about the benefits of going back to your own ancestry, what are we eating seven generations back or longer,” Perea said. “In that sense of trying to access this idea of seasonal eating and permaculture, one of the things that's always a good incentive is it's healthier for you.”
As the book points out, returning to these whole ingredients is one way Indigenous communities – and everyone – can move away from the unhealthy processed foods that came with colonization, but without losing the indulgence soups and stews often bring.
