Monday, May 21, 2012

Liz Warren's Authentic Cherokee Gefilte Fish

This is a guest post by reader Morgan.


It looks like one of Elizabeth Warren's recipes in the book Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes may have been traced all the way back to an upscale French restaurant in Manhattan circa 1979.

Well, hold on to your napkins, we’ve just discovered another tidbit of Warren-family cuisine that goes back even further -- maybe to the Lost Tribes of Israel. Enjoy!

Liz Warren's Authentic Cherokee Gefilte Fish

5 pounds red fish fillets, ground
2 large red (not white) onions
2 carrots
1 parsnip (paleface carrot)
5 domesticated (not prairie) chicken eggs, or 25 quail eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons Cherokee Kosher salt
4 teaspoons ground black (not white) pepper
3/4 cup Cherokee matzo meal
3/4 cup ice water
1/2 teaspoon Cherokee paprika

2 large red (not white) onions
2 carrots
1/2 teaspoon Cherokee paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground black (not white) pepper
2 tablespoons sugar

Preparation

Put the ground red fish in a large wooden bowl or hollowed-out gourd.

Using a food processor or a tomahawk, finely mince 2 onions, 2 carrots and the paleface carrot. Add the minced vegetables to the red fish.

Using a wooden spoon or an antler, stir one egg one at a time into the mixture (5 at a time for quail eggs). Add 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, 4 teaspoons salt, 4 teaspoons pepper, 1/2 teaspoon paprika.

Add ice water slowly as you continue to blend.

Add matzo meal and blend again. Check to see if the mixture will bind into a small ball. If it doesn’t, adjust the mixture by adding more water or matzo.

Fill a large cast iron pot half full with spring water. Start a fire with a Cherokee bow drill. If pressed for time, you can use flint and steel. Roughly chop the remaining onions and carrots, and add them to the pot. Add paprika, salt, pepper and two tablespoons of sugar. Bring to a boil for 1/4,320 of a moon (10 minutes).

Form the mixture into small balls half the size of a prairie chicken egg and gently lower them into the boiling stock with a slotted wooden spoon or crow feet tongs. Cook over a medium-low campfire for 1/360 of a moon (2 hours).

When done, let fish sit in the pot for 1/4,320 of a moon (10 minutes).

Using the slotted spoon or tongs, carefully remove the fish balls and place them in containers. Cover with strained stock. Chill and serve with Warren Family’s Famous Acorn & Pumpkin Chutney.

Warren’s Authentic Cherokee Gefilte Fish will keep in a White Man's magic cold box for up to 1/5 of a moon (6 days).


CORRECTION

The original post contained two errors.

Bring to a boil for 1/720 of a moon (10 minutes).

When done, let fish sit in the pot for 1/720 of a moon (10 minute).


The correct times are 1/4,320 of a moon (10 minutes).

The errors were corrected at 6:40 am on 4/23/12.

Thanks to reader Gringo for pointing out the errors.

9 comments:

Girngo said...

Minor correction: Given 30 days for a moon [ 1/5 moon= 6 days], 1/720 moon= 1 day, as 30days/moonX 24 hours/day= 720 hours/moon.

As there are 6 intervals of 10 minutes in an hour, we can then say that 10 minutes=(1/(720X6)moons=1/4320 moon.

Otherwise, hilarious. It is fitting that you have a recipe for Authentic Cherokee Gefilte Fish, as Irving Berlin composed I’m an Indian, Too for the musical Annie Get Your Gun, which has been used here to parody Elizabeth Warren.

While Elizabeth Warren may have believed that she was part Cherokee, her including a dish from a French restaurant in NYC is perhaps indicative of her real Indian roots. She didn't include any real Okie food, like barbecue, corn bread,black eyed peas, or fried okra. [Fried okra is my favorite Okie food memory.Good, good, good.]

Morgan said...

Gringo,

Thanks for the correction.

Boy, is my face red. Hey, maybe that'll help me get a job at Harvard.

Morgan said...

This from Bernie Quigley over at The Hill. Mr. Quigley appears to be serious.
Elizabeth Warren’s True American Lineage

... So Warren's claim to be "part Indian" is correct in mythical terms. Every old-school white Oklahoman is in this regard even if this in nominally not true. But it is not a lie to want to be Indian and to imagine your ancestors were. It is to be free of Europeanism. Emerson saw the laggard Europeanism within the Yankee mind as a curse of the unformed American, living half in shadow. It would bring temptation unnatural to us raised free in the forest; fascism, as in Italy, Spain and German, and the perennial virus of French nihilism.

Warren in that regard brings a fresh, classical Americanism from the heartland back to us in Boston where we still have tendencies. The James brothers, both William and Henry, would appreciate it. Henry in particular, in The Bostonians, could only find one worthy character up here, the country cousin Basil Ransom, a lawyer visiting from Mississippi. We are lucky to have Warren among us. She adds stock and substance.

I hope Mitt Romney remembers this and incorporates Indian blessings and ritual in his inaugural ceremonies as Canadians do and as they did in those terrific Winter Olympics in Salt Lake in 2002. And I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn't back down on this, because wanting to be Indian, like Hawkeye, makes us in a deeper sense fully American.

Morgan said...

From Powerline:
Winston Churchill, Harvard Minority

I had somehow forgotten that Winston Churchill’s grandmother was one-quarter Iroquois indian, which makes Winston (if I’ve done my genealogical math correctly) one-sixteenth native American–twice as much as Elizabeth Warren supposedly is. Let’s see the diversity-mongers explain this away.

Roosevelt commented to Churchill during one of WSC’s wartime visits, “You know, Winston, my Dutch ancestors were among the very first settlers in what was then called Nieuw Amsterdam.” Churchill answered: “But, Franklin, it was my ancestors, the American Indians, who greeted them.”

Maybe now Obama will feel comfortable putting the Churchill bust back in the Oval Office.

A_Nonny_Mouse said...

Good Lord.

Mr. Quigley evidently wants "... to be free of Europeanism." Is that correct? I am appalled.

WHAT are we teaching our students any more? Rather obviously, the current educrat-script is that those Dead White European Males (whose rationality and scrupulous search for moral truth over the centuries brought forth the glory of Western Civilization) were in truth greedy bastiges who sought to ravish the planet and destroy the noble/ tolerant/ peaceful cultures of the non-white Indigenous Peoples whose lands they coveted.

(And furthermore, y'know, those imperialist whites actually tried to END such quaint and charming tribal practices such as suttee, human sacrifice, cannibalism, slavery, selling children into prostitution, etc. How *DARE* the D.W.E.M.'s presume that their cultural preferences were "better" than the traditional practices of the cultures they invaded??? !!)

If this dreck is what's being taught, our civilization is already gone. We're just waiting for the last of the corpse to be recycled by the carrion-eaters.

Morgan said...

This from Mary Carmichael at the Boston Globe:
Filings add to questions on Warren’s ethnic claims
Elizabeth Warren has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore.

US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago.

But for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

The documents suggest for the first time that either Warren or a Harvard administrator classified her repeatedly as Native American in papers prepared for the government in a way that apparently did not adhere to federal diversity guidelines. They raise further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.

The Warren campaign declined Thursday to answer the Globe’s specific questions about the documents. In a statement, Warren’s spokeswoman, Alethea Harney, said that “over the past month Elizabeth has answered countless questions openly while the people who recruited her have made it clear it was because of her extraordinary skill as a teacher and a groundbreaking scholar.’’ ...

Morgan said...

AP Predictably Leaves Harvard's Violation of Federal Guidelines Out of Coverage of Liz Warren's Claimed Indian Heritage

... According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics (on employees' ethnicity) are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

... The Harvard document defines Native American as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition." It notes that this definition is consistent with federal regulations.

It is not a definition Warren appears to fit. She has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore, and she has no official tribal affiliation. The current executive director of Harvard’s Native American program has said she has no memory of Warren participating in any of its activities. ...

Morgan said...

Liz Warren archive at Legal Insurrection

Milhouse said...

Morgan, Churchill's supposed Indian ancestry was just as fictional as Warren's. Just another family legend that he believed, just like Warren.