Pork Fact, Bear Grease & Beaver Tail

Rich foods rewarded status and delivered calories hardworking people needed. Europeans reveled in melting layers of pork fat and bread slathered with butter. Bear grease, a clear oil, was the primary cooking oil and condiment for the Esopus Lenape, who also coated their skin and hair with it to protect against the elements. The tail of the beaver, fattiest of all, symbolized hospitality for the Lenape and their Haudenosaunee neighbors. They consider beaver meat a medicine, as beavers sustain themselves with medicinal tree bark. 

“On extraordinary occasions, when they wish to entertain any person, then they prepare beavers’ tails…The beaver tails are flattish, without hair, coated with a skin which appears as if set with fish scales, and when chopped up with the flesh of the beaver, it is a delicate food. The beaver tails excel all other flesh taken on land and in the water. “
–Adriaen van der Donck

Missing Ingredient: Palm Oil 

In West Africa, women and children mashed and boiled palm fruit and skimmed off its rich oil, using it to dress a dish of yams or deep-fry fish. The technique of deep frying, introduced by Africans, became common in North America.