True American Cooking

I recently read in Time magazine that aside from visiting a reservation, the only places you can find authentic Native American food are at this new restaurant in Colorado or at a certain cafe in Washington, D.C.

I love trying new foods and going to new restaurants, especially ones from other cultures, so when I heard Mitsitam Cafe was just a metro ride away, I went down there the first chance I got.

Red corn salad with trout, dandelion greens, and pine nut vinaigrette

Mitsitam Cafe isn’t your typical restaurant. In fact, it’s not even quite a restaurant. It’s more like a cafeteria. In a museum. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, to be exact.

The cafe menu is seasonal and divided by region: Northern Woodlands, South America, Meso America, Northwest Coast, and Great Plains. Each station has cold sides, hot sides, and main dishes featuring indigenous ingredients from the region and traditional recipes from tribes from that area.

I started at the Great Plains station with two side dishes – fry bread and a red corn salad. The red corn salad had smoked trout, dandelion greens, and a pine nut vinaigrette. It was nice and crunchy with a good balance of tangy vinaigrette and earthy dried corn.

The fry bread may have been my favorite part of the whole meal, actually. I’ve been a little homesick for Portland, Oregon, where I lived up until a few months ago, and one of my favorite restaurants, the Observatory, served the most delicious savory fry bread flavored with oregano and served with a side of crème fraiche and tomato puree. I’ve been missing that fry bread. And I have to say, Mitsitam’s fry bread was every bit as good. Their fry bread came with blueberry sauce spooned over the top. So delicious. It’s as simple as that. I loved it.

Maple-brined turkey, roast apple and pumpkin salad, and mushroom corn pone.

I also sampled some Northern Woodlands food, Thanksgiving style! Maple-brined turkey and cranberry chutney, plus two sides – mushroom corn pone (a grits-like mash) and a cold salad of roasted apple and pumpkin with sassafras vinaigrette. The turkey tasted like it had been sitting under the heat lamp a little too long, but overall, that was the perfect plate of warm, comforting food for a brisk fall day.

Trying the original American cuisine was actually a lot of fun. And while Native American cuisine won’t be kicking Mexican food out of its number one place on my list of favorite cuisines, I’m looking forward to going back to Mitsitam to try some buffalo chili and eat more fry bread.