NM2007 - A Taste of the Southwest - Lois Ellen Frank

A James Beard Award winner for her book Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, Lois Ellen Frank is a photographer and chef based in Santa Fe who has published 15 culinary posters and 18 cookbooks and photographed books for several prominent chefs (Mark Miller, chef/owner of Coyote Café of Santa Fe and the Red Sage in Washington, D.C., Hubert Keller, chef/owner of Fleur de Lys of San Francisco, and Roy Yamaguchi, chef/owner of Roy's Restaurant, Hawaii). She holds a master's degree in cultural anthropology, with a focus on Native American foods and plants, from University of New Mexico. Now she's pursuing a doctorate. A featured instructor at Santa Fe School of Cooking, she has begun a Native American catering and food company called Red Mesa with chef Walter Whitewater.

What is the essence of New Mexican cuisine?
The layering and blending of many cultures over hundreds of years brings a culinary richness to this Southwestern region. As a culinary anthropologist, I have done research on traditional foods and plants focusing on the Native Peoples of this region, and I don't think of New Mexico as standing alone in terms of its culinary traditions. It really includes the Southwest regions of Arizona, Southern Colorado, and Southern Utah — and in some cases parts of Northern Mexico. In many instances foods were shared and traded with neighboring regions long before borders were established.

What makes New Mexican food special?
It's really a place-based food that never lost its identity. For thousands of years, Native peoples enjoyed a variety of foods including domesticated turkey, dove, rabbit, deer, and elk — and they cultivated crops such as corn, beans, squash, herbs and wild harvesting greens, cacti, and chiles. On first contact with the Spanish, sheep, pork, cattle, and additional types of chiles were introduced and collided with the foods and food cultures already in existence here. As additional European immigrants moved into the area within the last 150 years, each group brought its own recipes, ingredients, and techniques that expanded the food traditions here. Today, New Mexico fuses or blends all of these cultural influences.

If you had one meal to share with good friends, what would it be?
I would serve a meal with multiple courses so that each guest could savor the tastes of the Southwest and enjoy the presentation. The first course would be a spicy corn soup made with chipotlé chile or an earthy corn posole. Then I would serve a salad of locally harvested greens such as lamb's quarters, dandelion greens, and mache lettuce made with a goat cheese dressing. The main course would be wild game birds, a marinated grilled quail with a honey-chile glaze and served on a bed of sautéed wild mustard greens and purslane. To drink, I would serve cota, a wild Indian tea. This delicious drink, served hot or cold, is harvested fresh as a local plant in the spring, tied in bundles, and dried for future use. As a finale, I would serve an Indian bread pudding prepared in a traditional Pueblo way with cheddar cheese, nutmeg, and cañela, topped with a prickly pear syrup made with the ripened fruit of the nopal cactus, honey, and fresh lemon juice.