Family recipies for family gatherings? I have one to share!

Some here may know, some may not. Im Blackfeet ( Piegan) and though have been off rez for 1 or 2 generations.. I still have a lot of the family traditions and recipes. Im having a family get together for Christmas and my husbands father ( he's white and German) seems to LOVE everything I cook.. especially the traditional stuff. Ive seen the cook books out there as far as foods from the various tribes. They're terrible and repetitive. You can only cook frybread so many ways, eh?

I hope you all enjoy this or maybe try it. Its great for the hunters because you can substitute the Elk for Deer or Bison.. any large animal meats, but not store bought cow. The taste just isnt the same You can do this in your kitchen or tweak it for camp cooking.

Elk Soup
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Crack deer bones after removing from meat (large ham bone and pelvic bones, etc so the marrow is exposed. I use a kitchen mallet, but I imagine a plain old hammer is good! ). Place in large stew pot, add seasonings . Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for three hours. Strain stock through tea strainer, then through cloth to remove any particles. Allow to cool, then skim off any fat which accumulates. Use as base for soup or stew.
The meat you stripped off when yuo removed the bones..shred it to put in the base now. Add 6 cloves of garlic, Mace, Basil, a whole yellow onion, a whole red onion, 4 shallots, celery, and fresh ground pepper. Add into it potatoes after about 30 min of a soft boil with the seasoning onions and etc. You can add barley or noodles or buttermilk dumplings to it which I I sometimes do. I serve this with fry bread sometimes but mostly plain old croissants!

Im not the best recipe author obviously.. but the fun of a lot of these old recipes is tweaking it to your family's personal taste. My grandmother wouldnt even add the meat or potatoes sometimes. We just ate the broth with frybread.. dipping it in. Other times she added all kinds of veggies for more of an elk vegetable soup. Its a very versatile basic recipe that can be used in lean times and fat times depending on what you have on hand.

Hey, that sounds great. I bet it goes good with frybread.

Thanks for sharing , maybe i should try to learn this recipe and cook it for my family this week.