OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for grilled winter squash soup AND a new short video celebrating Indigenous cuisine.

Click here to subscribe. For previous stories, go here.

This time of year is an endless stream of attractive produce. Every week there’s a new winter squash to fawn over — everything from pink-skinned fairytale princesses to their warty, ash-gray wicked witch counterparts. There are slate-blue Jarrahdale pumpkins; sleek, speckled delicatas and technicolor turbans. With a global distribution, pumpkins and other winter squashes are truly cosmopolitan, just as diverse in geography as they are in appearance — but all squash have one thing in common. Do you know what it is? Read on to find out!

New “Superabundant” reel: Frybread Fest

Last week, “Superabundant” attended Portland’s inaugural Frybread Fest, digging into the food, music and art of Indigenous cultures from around the Pacific Northwest. What a wonderfully dynamic way to bring communities together — I hope to see more events like these in the future. Check out our reel of the event on Instagram.

Siletz Tribe Cape Foulweather

Coinciding with the anniversary of their federal recognition, the Siletz Tribe has regained stewardship of Cape Foulweather — the first bit of Oregon land spotted by Captain Cook in 1778. The Tribe plans to focus on restoring the ecology of the area, reintroducing controlled burns to the wet meadows to enhance big game habitat and restoring estuaries to support shellfish, reinvigorating connections to cultural traditions.

Another E. coli outbreak

Another E. coli outbreak has hit produce aisles in Oregon and Washington, this time linked to organic carrots. Grimmway Farms carrots have been recalled from stores (Whole Foods, Target, Walmart and Fred Meyer are local sellers), but the product may still be in refrigerators and freezers. The outbreak has so far killed one person and made 38 others ill.

“Joy of Cooking” has a new podcast

The stewards and authors of the latest edition of the time-honored “Joy of Cooking” now have a podcast, and I got to be their first guest! (I was fortunate enough to test recipes for the 2019 edition). Listen to hosts John Becker (great-grandson of original “Joy of Cooking” author Irma Rombauer), Megan Scott, Shannon Larson and yours truly as we wax romantic about pie and various nerdy food topics.

If you dislike crowded markets, this was probably one of the worst weeks to hit the grocery store! Not only did we contend with a “bomb cyclone” (!!) and an atmospheric river, causing flash flooding, mudslides and other wintry havoc (impacting shipping/deliveries on top of triggering shoppers to stock up), but there’s that whole upcoming holiday meal to plan for.

Most farmers markets are winding down for the year, but jewellike radicchio, winter squash, apples, persimmons, cranberries and root vegetables should still be around in grocery stores (if they haven’t been stripped of shelves by winter storm preppers and turkey day hosts).

Speaking of holiday meals, I asked OPB staffers about their favorite Thanksgiving side dishes, and the answers ran the gamut — the carbo-tastic Holy Trinity of mashed potatoes, stuffing and rolls garnered several knowing nods, while associate director of audience engagement piqued my interest with her mention of her mom’s Chamorro-style red rice (served with spicy fina’denne’ sauce). Various casseroles were named (classic green bean rarely gets the respect it deserves), the time-honored sweet potatoes with pecans was named, and “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller reminded us of the simple joy canned black olives.

Do you have a favorite nonprofit organization that I should know about for Giving Tuesday? Send an email to superabundant@opb.org and let me know (bonus points if it’s related to food)!

Lately, in the “Superabundant” kitchen

✨ I made a tiny feast of Cuban and West African dishes (the flavors are very compatible): black beans with homegrown chiles, stewed greens (kale from the garden, in this case) with coconut, kelewele (spicy fried plantains) with sweet potatoes and arroz con pollo (adding a Maggi cube makes it taste like jollof rice).

✨On a busy weeknight, I roasted a tiny kuri squash in the toaster oven to eat with mushroom tortellini and brown butter-fried sage. Once again, having a few cold-hardy herbs in the garden (and a well-stocked pantry) saves the day.

✨ Leftover rice, shredded rotisserie chicken and homemade chicken stock became a satisfying congee. I topped the bowls with garlic-ginger-scallion oil, Chinese celery leaves, crispy fried shallots and chili crisp.

Recipe: Wood-grilled winter squash soup

If you paid attention in school, you know that the Three Sisters of Indigenous agriculture refers to a trio of crops — maize, beans, and squash — originally domesticated in Mesoamerica. Cultivation of these crops eventually spread north and east to Canada, coming to represent the basis of traditional Native American cuisine across most of what is now called the United States. Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest didn’t traditionally grow these crops, but harvested as much of the plentiful salmon, huckleberries and starchy-sweet camas bulbs as they needed. These could be considered our region’s Three Sisters.

All squash* originated in the areas between today’s American Southwest and the Andes, domesticated about 4,000 years earlier than maize and beans. Some heirloom squash, like cushaw, haven’t changed much at all since their domestication ≥8,000 years ago, and are still cultivated by people in the northern reaches of what is now called Arizona. I had the opportunity to learn more about this squash when I received this week’s recipe from Jack Strong, executive chef at Jory Restaurant at The Allison Inn and Spa and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

During his time at the helm of KAI (the restaurant located in the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa in Chandler, Arizona), his way of Indigenous culinary storytelling bagged him a James Beard Award. For this week’s newsletter, chef Strong generously shared the recipe that tells the stories of the Zuni, Hopi and Tohono O’odham people of Arizona.

In his original version of the recipe, the Tohono O’odham Ha:I squash and Rio Zape beans are nods to the lives and histories of Gila River tribespeople (even the garnish, cotton candy dusted with powdered chile, recalls the pima cotton traditionally grown by the same people). But chef Strong is a native (and Native) Oregonian, which got me wondering: What singular dish might tell the story of tribes of the Oregon Coast?

Maybe a soup made silky with pureed wapato, studded with juicy clams and oysters, punctuated with the bright acidity of red huckleberries and saline crunch of dulse? Maybe a spit-roasted chinook salmon, redolent with the smoke of western redcedar, lashed with a peppery pesto of searocket, wild chives and hazelnut?

As a culinary historian, I often reflect on the ways Indigenous women might have dabbled with the ingredients available to them — approaching their cooking with creativity and verve before their foodways were colonized with wheat, white sugar and liquor. In a region as superabundant as the Pacific Northwest, weaving and carving were not the only forms of creative expression. Cooking has never been solely for subsistence.

If you spend as much time thinking about food, plants and history as I do, you’ll find that Strong’s intricately woven tale of the Gila River tribes is not difficult to translate into Chinook Wawa. Here, though, I’ve tried to approach his recipe with the lightest touch, editing only to reflect local ingredient availability and the volumes typically prepared in home kitchens (I’ve omitted the cotton candy, replacing the sweetness with desert honey). For his scaled-up version originally served at KAI, see the cookbook "The New Native American Cuisine." Serves 4-6

*All summer and winter squashes are Cucurbita species; calabash or bottle-gourds, which come from southern Africa, are a different genus.

Ingredients

½ pound dry Rio Zape beans (or cranberry beans)

1 bunch fresh thyme

½ cup peeled and smashed garlic cloves, divided

4 cups mesquite chips, soaked in water for an hour (or alder wood, to make it Northwest)

1 medium-size (~2-3 pound) kabocha or small butternut squash, peeled and seeded

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ yellow onion, sliced

2 ribs celery, chopped

2 medium-sized carrots, peeled and chopped

2 shallots, sliced

2 red Hatch or Anaheim chilis, stemmed and seeded

2 quarts (8 cups) chicken broth

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 pint (2 cups) heavy cream

Juice of ½ lime

1 cup diced bacon (wild boar bacon is in the original recipe; optional)

Honey for drizzling (preferably mesquite or other desert honey)

¼ cup roasted Piquillo pepper (jarred is fine, or grill a red pepper with squash), diced

6 fresh basil leaves, finely sliced (chiffonade)

1 teaspoon chipotle powder or smoked paprika

Instructions

1. In a pressure cooker, cook the beans in salted water with the thyme and half of the garlic at 10 psi for 35 minutes. (If you aren’t using a pressure cooker, soak them overnight in salted water and simmer until tender, about an hour.) Strain, reserving a cup of the cooking liquid. Blend half the beans with the cooking liquid to a smooth puree, then fold in the remaining whole beans, cover and set aside to stay warm.
2. While the beans are cooking, place wet mesquite chips on the grill. Cut and peel the squash into 1 inch-thick slices, then brush with some of the olive oil. Cook the squash with the grill cover on until it takes on grill marks and smoky flavor, about 8-10 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking. Remove to a plate and cover lightly with foil.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Sauté the onions, celery, carrots, shallots and the rest of the garlic cloves until glossy, about 5 minutes. Add the chiles, the grilled squash and chicken stock and simmer until the squash is tender, about 20 minutes. Puree in a blender, pass through a fine-mesh sieve, then add the salt, heavy cream and lime juice. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, then return to low heat to keep warm.
4. Sauté the bacon (if using) until crispy, then remove with a slotted spoon to drain on a paper towel.
5. To serve, spoon the beans into the middle of your bowl, then gently ladle the soup around the beans like a moat. Drizzle a scant amount of honey over the top, sprinkle on the diced peppers and bacon, then dust the top with the chipotle or paprika.

Get these recipes sent to your inbox every week. Don’t forget to tell a friend!