Preservation of Fall Harvest
By MASHKODE-BIZHIKIGAHBAW, BENJI SAM
Autumn marks an incredibly valuable time of year in the Sam family because it marks one of the busiest and most important months to prepare for the winter to come. Harvest season is upon us and making grains, fruits, and vegetables last throughout the fall and winter.
All the hard work my mom and aunt put into the garden all summer is finally paying dividends in tomatoes, beans, squash, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, and just about every other vegetable known to man. Those old ladies can really work — just like the generation before them — and will spend hours on end in the garden keeping plants clear of invasives, weeds, and critters. The art of food preservation in today’s world takes a back seat to superstores, and there was once a time where we, our nation’s first people, were at the forefront of food preservation, stewardship of the land, and resource management.
Since the beginning of time, native people across the country fought to preserve food in as many ways as possible to eat a balanced diet throughout the year. As we edge into fall, vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, and natural medicines are all ready for picking, but a little extra care is needed. Traditionally fruits and vegetables were stored in food cashes underground to keep away from critters and from turning rotten before freezing up. Many of these items were dried in the sun or over a fire prior to storage and later rehydrated in soups and rice to be enjoyed months later.
Today, many berries like blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, and plums will either get thrown into the freezer whole or rendered down into jam to enjoy with toast all year long. This is the same time the apples begin to fall, in which we begin making applesauce and apple cider from our miniature orchard. My aunt and mom will take the lead on preparing tomatoes to make tomato sauce for spaghetti, soups, chili, and many other meals. Corn must also be shucked and frozen to last the winter, as does every other veggie from the garden — there is no shortage of responsibility come August and September in the Sam family.
Before fall arrives, the manoomin (wild rice) must also be picked by canoe, push pole, and handmade knockers before it can be laid out to dry, parch, thrash/jig, and winnow before it can be packaged. Fish and game meat, another staple to a balanced diet, was traditionally smoked, dried, or hammered into a powder and mixed with rendered fat into what many today know as pemmican. This was the original "Cliff Bar" — packed with nutrient-dense calories to keep traveling hunters fed while looking to bring game back to the village.
Today, we spend most of our days vacuum sealing, freezing, canning, dehydrating, and labeling with dates, batch numbers, and spice mixes to know which food you are preparing to grab from the shelf. There is something so rewarding and wholesome about being able to sustain entire meals for days and weeks at a time without ever having to stop at a market to get by.
One of my biggest goals in life is not having to buy meat from the store and instead fill each day’s protein from homegrown, harvested, butchered, caught, and prepared right from my own kitchen. Each fall as the ducks, grouse, turkeys, pheasants, and whitetails start to become easier to hunt, I can’t help but think about the meat-packing days to come. After deer season, a group of our friends and family gather every year to process hundreds of pounds of meat together. My favorite part of reaching into the freezer every morning for the night’s dinner is being able to choose from steak, chops, roasts, ground burger, sausage, brats, kielbasa, summer sausage, canned deer meals, and many other cuts from one single animal as well as chicken, beef, or pork from which we barter our neighbors for.
Self-sustenance is not some easy feat to accomplish, and I would be lying if I said I could survive year-round without the grocery store, but it fills my heart with pride to know that I was raised with people from many generations around me who also value the land, plants, fish, animals, and water that give us life. So many pieces and hard work go into ricing, gardening, hunting, sapping, and gathering to be able to share around the family for the next year, but the reward is always worth it: Independence from the unhealthy chokehold that is the modern food industry.
