Native American Three Sisters Soup

I absolutely love how my idea for the Read and Rise Book Club is having unexpected benefits. Obviously, I'm hoping it helps promote feelings of self-worth and self-confidence as well as improve understanding and appreciation for other cultures and the earth. But I always end up learning even more than I thought I would! 

When researching books about Native American culture to include this month, the book "Fry Bread" by Kevin Noble Maillard led me to learn that fry bread originated from oppression and suffering. And when searching for more Native American recipes to try and share, I came across Three Sisters Soup. Of course with a name like that I had to look into what the three sisters were and why they were called the three sisters. Here's the short version of what I found. The traditional three sisters were corn, beans, and squash. Before the American government forced indigenous tribes from their lands and onto reservations where they could only have small garden plots, those tribes would grow the three sisters on the same mound. The corn would provide a trellis for the beans and the beans helped secure the corn in high winds. Today, we also know that there is a bacteria living on bean plant roots that pulls nitrogen from the air and converts it to a form that both the beans and corn can use. The squash vines would help shade the ground with their large leaves, discouraging weed growth and encouraging water retention in the soil. If you would like to read more about the three sisters and current efforts to revive Native agricultural practices, check out "Returning the 'Three Sisters' - corns, beans, and squash - to Native American Farms Nourishes People, Land, and Cultures. 

This was seriously mind blowing to me! I grew up so used to the traditional method of farming where each type of plant had its own area on the farm. Now that we are researching more into home gardening, we're finding that method causes so many problems! I was just reading about good crop rotation methods a couple of days ago and learned that rotating your crops will drastically cut down on insect problems and disease. I also read that you will have much fewer insect and disease issues if you grow different vegetables together instead of having a devoted garden bed to each kind. I'm literally relearning something Native Americans knew hundreds of years ago! It's a weird mix of frustrating and amazing at the same time...

Anyway, onto the soup! There are so many variations on the Three Sisters Soup but I settled on this version from First Nations. I liked this recipe because it was simple with easy to get ingredients and because it was vegetarian - I'm always looking for delicious vegetarian meals to throw into our rotation. If you are vegan, this recipe is perfect as well, all you have to do is replace the butter with oil or margarine and stick with vegetable stock. I used butter and chicken stock, but made one small adjustment to the recipe. I left out the curry powder and red pepper flakes because we're not crazy about those flavors and instead added a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg. 

I served the soup along with cranberry brie bites, since I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. The brie bites are simply crescent roll dough cut into squares and placed in a mini muffin tin topped with chunks of brie, some cranberry jam/sauce, and chopped pecans. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. One tube of crescent roll makes 24 bites. 3 out of 4 family members really enjoyed this dinner, so I'm going to call it a win! We'll add it into our regular meal rotation and maybe the 4th member will eventually learn to like it...