Montana State team develops recipes featuring Native crops

BOZEMAN — Yellow cornmeal grits with roasted vegetables. Maple sugar popcorn with chili smoked salt. Curried butternut squash and tepary bean soup. Those are just a few of the recipes featuring Native crops that a team of students and faculty at Montana State University have developed to help support Native American producers and improve food security on reservations.

Their project, "Recipes for Resilience – Developing Recipes Using Native Crops and Pantry Items to Support Producers and Food Bank Users in Tribal Nations," produced 14 recipes designed to highlight the nutritional and environmental benefits of Native foods and provide budget-friendly, convenient and versatile meal options. Half of the recipes use USDA-approved food bank items, while the other half showcase products from an online directory identifying American Indian-made products. In addition to tepary beans, maple syrup and cornmeal, other featured ingredients include wild rice, honey and teas.

The MSU project is supported by an $8,000 grant from the university’s Outreach and Engagement Council and is also part of a three-year, $349,000 grant from the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program. Students and faculty behind the project include Rebecca Soule, culinary research chef; culinary research assistant Annemarie Kozlowski; and Shelby Smith, a dietetics student. Wan-Yuan Kuo, associate professor in the Department of Food Systems, Nutrition and Kinesiology with expertise in food science, is the project director.

Soule, who developed the recipes with her culinary research assistant, Kozlowski, noted that they are meant to be accessible to anyone. Kozlowski was fulfilling her hospitality management internship. Soule said they considered what ingredients are in season, their cost, their local availability and how to use the same ingredients in different recipes to reduce food waste.

“The producer marketing recipes were fun because it challenged me to incorporate new ingredients that I had not encountered before. The food bank recipes felt so important and meaningful because, at the end of the day, we are just helping people eat,” Kozlowski said.

Soule added that she approaches health holistically: “I look at overall health, including mental health and financial health,” she said. “How can we make this recipe so that lots of different people feel they can make it in their home kitchen?”

“We’re looking at how to utilize limited food resources at food banks,” Kuo added. “Can people using those resources access a variety of ingredients? We’re looking at all these details to understand food bank users’ perspectives.”

Another goal is to help generate interest in Indigenous food products and to get buyers nationally and internationally interested in procuring those products, she said. The project has partnered with the American Indian Foods program, which works to increase market access opportunities for Native American food and ag businesses. MSU’s Food Product Development Lab has collaborated with AIF since 2020, Kuo said.

Smith, a student researcher who is a McNair Scholar and a Montana INBRE Scholar, investigated through a Montana Pollution Prevention Internship the nutritional components of the Native crops that were used in the recipes.

“It was an awesome experience to be engaged in a way to help consumers and producers find safe food production and consumption techniques,” Smith said. “I also appreciate, as a person who grew up on a farm on the Flathead Reservation, the opportunity to support Indigenous producers.”

Kuo said the MSU team hopes that by combining culinary skills, food science and cultural knowledge, their project will benefit several realms of wellness.

“The goal is to develop delicious and diverse recipes while providing valuable educational and professional development opportunities for MSU students,” Kuo said. “This project also aligns with and supports our food systems, nutrition and kinesiology department and the EHHD college’s core focus on supporting food systems and food security through creative student learning and research partnership.”

The recipes will eventually be published at  montana.edu/foodprodevlab/recipes/index.html.