The Cherokees were hunters, gatherers, and agriculturists. Traditionally the primary meat eaten was deer but also ate buffalo, squirrel, turkey, a variety of fish, and many other types of game. The primary vegetables were corn, beans, and squash, but also gathered nuts, berries, and many wild plants. After the arrival of the Europeans orchards were grown on a large scale, mainly peach orchards, and some livestock were raised. The Cherokees developed over thousands of years many culinary treats. The greatest number of recipes are probably for the many many different kinds of bread.

Cherokee Bean Balls
2 cups brown beans
4 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
(soda is used in place of lye water)
Boil beans in salted water until tender. Put cornmeal, flour and soda in large mixing bowl. Mix well. Add boiled beans and some of the juice to the cornmeal/flour mixture to form a stiff dough. Roll in balls and drop into pot of boiling hot water. Let cook for 30 minutes at a slow boil.

Cormeal Cookies
Cream together:
3/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup sugar
Add the following ingredients until smooth:
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
Add and mix well:
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp. baking powered
1/4 tsp. salt
Optional:
1/2 cup raisins
Drop dough from tablespoon on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes until lightly browned. Makes
about 1 1/2 dozen.

Crawfish
Catch crawfish by baiting them with groundhog meat or buttermilk. Pinch off tails and legs to use. Parboil, remove hulls and fry the little meat that is left. When crisp, it is ready to eat. Crawfish can also be used in a soup or stew after it is fried.

Cabbage
Directions: Wilt cabbage in a small amount of grease (go-i). Add some pieces of green peppers and cook until cabbage turns red. Serve with cornbread (se-lu ga-du).

Corn and Beans
Directions: Skin flour corn with lye and cook. Cook colored beans. Put the cooked corn and beans together and cook some more. Add pumpkin if you like, cooking until pumpkin is done. Add to this a mixture of cornmeal, beaten walnuts and hickory nuts, and enough molasses to sweeten. Cook this in an iron pot until the meal is done. Eat fresh or just after it begins to sour. This will not keep too long after it begins to sour unless the weather is cold.

Cornmeal Gravy
Fry some meat (about 4 pcs.side meat) Have enough grease to cover cornmeal. Add about 1/2 cup of meal (you may wanna salt this a bit, unless you like bland) Brown the meal in grease until light brown. Add 2 1/2 cups of milk, stir and let boil until thick. Serve hot over any kind of bread.

Cornmeal Mush
Corn meal
boiling water
(1 part corn meal to 4 parts water)
salt to taste
Put water in saucepan. Cover and let it become boiling hot over the fire; then add a tablespoon of salt. Take off the light scum from the top. Take a handful of the cornmeal with the left hand and a pudding stick in the right (or vise versa if you're a southpaw); then with the stick, stir the water around and by degrees let fall the meal. When one handful is exhausted, refill it; continue to stir and add meal until it is as thick as you can stir easily, or until the stick will stand in it. Stir it awhile longer. Let the fire be gentle.
When it is sufficiently cooked which will be in half an hour, it will bubble or buff up. Turn it into a deep basin. Good eaten cold or hot, with milk or butter and syrup or sugar, or with meat and gravy or it may be sliced when cold and fried.

Dried Apples
Peel and quarter ripe apples, or slice and dry in the sun. Cook the dried apples until done. If the cooked apple needs to be thickened, add cornmeal and cook until meal is done.

Dried Corn Soup 
1 ear dried blue and white or other corn,
removed from the cob
7 cups water (ama)
1 (2"x1") strip fat back, sliced
5 oz. dried beef
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper (do qua yo di)
Soak the corn in 2 cups water for 48 hours.
Place the corn and its soaking water in a large saucepan. Add the remaining water and the fat back, and simmer, covered, for about 3 hours and 50 minutes or until the corn is tender but not soft. 3. Mix in the dried beef and pepper, and simmer, stir for 10 minutes more.

Fry-Bread
2 Cups Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 cup Instant Dry Milk
2 Cups Shortening
Mix Flour, baking powder, salt, powdered milk, and water. Heat shortening until flakes of flour start to bubble when dropped into oil. While shortening is heating, Pull off a palm sized mound of dough and roll it into a smooth ball then flatten into a disk shape. Size is a matter of preference. Put dough into pan, cook until brown, turn over and cook other side until brown. You can take a brown paper bag and place a few sheets of paper towels on the bottom and drop finished fry bread into bag to let grease drain. Makes about 6 servings.

Greens Salad
Sweet grass
Old Field Creases
Ramps
Angelica
Poke
Parboil, salt, then cooked some more with grease. Serve hot.

Huckleberry Bread
2 cups flour
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1 cup milk
1 tea. vanilla
2 cups berries (Huckleberry or blueberry)
Cream eggs, butter and sugar. Add flour, milk and vanilla. Sprinkle flour on berries to prevent them from going to the bottom. Add berries. Bake at 350
for 40 minutes.

Kanuchi
Kanuchi is considered to be a real delicacy. The nuts are gathered in the fall and allowed to dry for a few weeks before the kanuchi making begins. It is a simple process, but that does not necessarily mean that is easy. The hickory nuts are cracked and the largest pieces of shell removed either by shaking the pieces through a loosely woven basket, or picking them out by hand.
Traditionally, a log was hollowed out on one end into a bowl like shape. The shelled hickory nuts are placed in the hollowed log and pounded with a long heavy stick with the end rounded to have the same contour, more or less, as the cavity in the log. The nuts are pounded until they are of a consistency that can be formed into a ball that will hold its shape. Kanuchi balls are usually about three inches in diameter and must be stored in a cold place. Today kanuchi is usually preserved by freezing.
To prepare kanuchi for the table, place a kanuchi ball in a saucepan with about a quart of water and bring it to a boil to dissolve the ball. Allow the kanuchi to simmer about ten minutes and then poor it through a fine sieve. (A colander lined with cheese cloth works very well for this.) All the remaining shells are left in the sieve. If you have the time and patience you can pick the larger bits of nut meat from the shells in the sieve and add them to the liquid kanuchi. The kanuchi should be about as thick as light cream. Most traditional cooks will add about two cups of homemade hominy to a quart of kanuchi. Some cooks prefer hominy grits, which are prepared according to package directions and added to the kanuchi. Such things as consistency and how much hominy or hominy grits to add are, of course a matter of taste, as is the addition of salt or sugar.
Serve kanuchi hot as soup.

Leather Breeches
1 pound fresh green beans, washed
2 quarts water
1/4 pound salt pork, diced
2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
heavy thread
darning needle
Snap the ends off the beans and string on heavy thread with needle. Hang in a sunny place to dry for about 2 months.
To cook: Soak beans for 1 hour in the two quarts of water. Add the salt pork, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer slowly, for 3 hours. Add more water if needed.

Potato Soup
Peel white potatoes and cut them into small pieces. Boil in water with an onion or two until potatoes and onions mash easily. After mashing, add some fresh milk and reheat the mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste, if desired.

Red Sumach Drink
Shell berries off and gently rub between the palms of your hands, being careful not to crush the berries but only the spines, drop into water, strain, sweeten to taste and chill.

Cherokee Succotash
Shell some corn and skin it with wood ashes lye. Cook corn and beans separately, then together. If desired, you may put pieces of pumpkin in. Be sure to put the pumpkin in early enough to get done before the pot is removed from the fire.

Swamp Potatoes
Gather and wash swamp potatoes. Bake in oven or in ashes until they are done. Beat the cooked potatoes in the corn beater until they are like any other meal. Use as meal is used.

Sweet Corn Mixture
Skin flour corn by putting it in lye. Cook the corn until it is done. Add beans and continue cooking until the beans are done. Add pumpkin and cook until it is done, then add walnut (se di) meal and a little corn meal. Add a little sugar or molasses if you'd like. Cook until the corn meal is done.