Have you ever had a day where you wanted breakfast for dinner? Who determines what foods are held to what time period? Well, this week, we are breaking that trend with a Duck Egg Frittata, inspired by the Coahuiltecan culture.
Who were the Coahuiltecan?
The Coahuiltecan is a name used for sixty nomadic bands that lived in Southwestern Texas for 11,000 years. The tribe is called Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, with their remaining people’s tied to San San Antonio’s Mission history, due to forceful methods of conversion due to Catholicism, in the 1800’s. (Chavana, A.)
Previously, it was assumed that the tribe was now extinct, however, we now know that theory is false.
The nomadic peoples who made up the Coahuiltecan, focused their diets on hunted meats, such as Bison, Deer and Turkeys; and water-based foods, such as waterfowl and fish. Like many of the other cultures we’ve discussed, in cultures without farming, they focused on foods that could have been gathered, such as Mesquite Beans, Cactus, seeds and items like eggs.
Explanation of the Recipe
Here is the hard part about determining recipes: Lack of records. The Coahuiltecan peoples are not documented well and as it is with a lot of nomadic cultures – they did not leave a lot of artifacts for us to dig through.
This isn’t to say they left nothing – We have numerous records of lithic and points, which we are able to track to their migration. We know they followed the animals, into Mexico, back to Southwestern Texas, for thousands of years. With this, based on ethnographic evidence, we can assume some trade would exist, focusing on foods and travel-friendly goods.
This means that they likely did not use pottery, but potentially used goods similar to plains Native Americans, such as gourds and animal skin vessels, for cooking and drinking. The perk of gourds is that they are light, can travel easily and can be sturdy for cooking, but the key negative is that they are organic, and will degrade. This means we rely on knowledge of what other groups did.
With all of this information at hand, we had decided to make a Duck Egg Frittata. The fillings can be beans, tomatoes, corn but can also be shredded turkey (Or turkey bacon, no judge). This can be a fridge/pantry clear out type of meal, which made a pretty large serving for us.
Recipe
Duck Egg Frittata
Ingredients
- 5 duck eggs (whole)
- 4 duck egg yolks
- 1/4 cup of corn kernels
- 8 grape tomatoes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Whisk eggs and egg yolks together.
- Add to cooking dish (or cast iron as we did), placing mixing in corn and placing sliced tomatoes on top.
- Cook in oven for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle salt to taste on top of Frittata. Return to oven for additional 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven to cool.
Notes
We used Cast Iron due to lack of accessibility to gourd-based dishes. This would also work in a ceramic dish.
Reviews
Meghan’s Review: 1 out of 5 stars
I don’t know what it was, but the duck eggs had such a strong taste, I couldn’t take more than one bite. Maybe if the recipe could have had cheese added or something, but in an accurate sense, I couldn’t eat it. Luckily, Brad loved it.Â
Brad’s Review: 5 out of 5 stars
I really enjoyed the meal. I had never had duck eggs before so I didn’t really know what to expect. And I am happy to say that I loved it. I know that Meghan didn’t care for it much, but I felt like the corn went really well with it. I don’t know if I would change anything about the meal. Everything worked together and made for a tasty and light meal.
Bibliography
http://indianagourdsociety.org/education/Gourds_In_American_History_2010.pdf
