Down at Edge of the Cedars
State Park and Museum (Blanding, Utah), there is an annual lecture series which
includes keynote speakers and authors of the Four Corners Region. On June 30, 2017, I was pleased to be in
attendance for the “The Pueblo Food Experience” with one of the authors, Assistant
Professor Porter Swenzill. I had already
received this excellent cookbook as a gift, so the chance to hear an author
relate the story behind its making was a thrill. Before the lecture, I introduced myself to
Professor Swenzill, politely asked if I could photograph him for an article I
wanted to write, and would he please autograph my book. He seemed to be very surprised, but agreed to
it all; ok, I admit, I was having a fan-girl moment of my own.
Once the lecture begin,
Professor Swenzill was in his element; the enthusiasm he felt for this subject,
and his experiences with it, came out full force. As a lecturer, he captured the full attention
of his audience, drew them into his life and wowed with the results. His story began with a doctor visit, tests
results having his doctor exclaim, “You’ll be dead in a few years.” This stunned Swenzill, how could this
be? Speaking with family members, all
well educated in their own fields of study, and with vast curiosity, it was
decided to go back in time and find out, “What did our Puebloan society eat to
keep so healthy, and where did our modern descendants go so wrong?”
World War 2 saw a vast
number of Puebloans be indoctrinated into the military, shipped off to foreign
lands, introduced to Spam and other processed foods. A taste for these foods developed, along with
the idea of becoming cowboys and go into ranching; the hunter/gathering ways of
their ancestors began to be lost.
Swenzill began a volunteer study which included going back to the “old
ways”, growing/finding/eating only the foods that were available during that
time, and recording the results. 
After three months, he went back to the doctor with his test results indicating, “there is nothing wrong with you, what did you do!?!” Swenzill explained to his doctor the experiment conducted to which the doctor stated, “That’s not FDA approved!” and also that the prior test results must have been done in error.
In conclusion, Swenzill encouraged the
audience to find out, “Where did your families originate from?”, “What foods
did they eat prior to the development of processed foods?”, “Realize, there is
no real standard diet, as all groups have different backgrounds which we modern
people will learn much from.” Following
the pre-modern diet of one cultural group does not necessarily mean it is
correct for you, so do the research and find out for yourself.
The cookbook itself is
well worth purchasing with beautifully captured photographs of the recreated
recipes, the people involved in the study, gathering and harvesting. The stories within give a clear background
and explanation of the Puebloan peoples of the Southwest. I thoroughly enjoyed reading from cover to
cover, and while I will honestly say, “there is no way I’m eating buffalo tongue!”
I will not say no to blue corn pancakes.
Mary Cokenour
