Top Ten Best First Nations Foods - Part 1

In my opinion, one of the greatest impacts that America’s First Nations have had on the world was through their crop breeding. Unfortunately, most people don’t know much about food history and sadly the contributions of First Nations to world cuisine are often taken for granted. But First Nations crop plants have provided us with many of the most widely eaten and nutritious foods in existence (as well as some of the tastiest). So here is part one of my list of the top ten best foods from the Americas (in order of my own personal preference-it is my blog after all!).

8. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa)

Hailed as a super food by vegans and vegetarians for its complete protein levels, this seed has increased in popularity partly because it is a healthy, whole grain. Quinoa has been eaten by South Americans for about 7,000 years. However, Quinoa production plummeted for a time as Spanish conquistadors in South America forbade the Andean peoples from cultivating it due to its association with traditional religious ceremonies. Fortunately, some of the Andeans continued to grow quinoa because it tolerates dry, somewhat saline soils at high altitudes where other crops cannot thrive. Quinoa is everywhere now, stuffed into vegetables, pilafs, grain salads, and even breakfast cereal.

6. Peppers (Capsicum spp.)

Peppers have been giving humans a spicy thrill for over 5,000 years. Whether you like them sweet or hot, all peppers (also called capsicums or chilis) were first cultivated in central and South America. Peppers became most popular in warmer climates such as the Mediterranean and southeast Asia where they benefit from the long growing season. Rich in vitamin A and C peppers are enjoyed raw, powdered as a spice, or cooked in sauces.

Stay tuned for the final five foods coming in May!

Scientists have spent many decades arguing with each other about lichens. It’s a plant! No, it’s a fungus! No, it’s an alga. It’s a fungus parasitizing an alga. No, it’s an alga parasitizing a fungus! Nobody’s parasitizing anybody! They’re living in harmony like a bunch of hippies in a commune! I prefer to think of a lichen as an organism with an identity crisis. No wait, that’s not very flattering. Perhaps they are more like legless organism support groups. Or maybe they’re akin to exclusive nightclubs with a “no animals allowed” sign on the door.

Image: Fungi were still considered to be primitive plants when the Museum first opened.

In reality, lichens cannot be classified as anything because they are composite organisms containing species from (probably) four different kingdoms. The scientific name of the lichen is based on the name for the fungal host (Kingdom Fungi) but lichens also contains photosynthetic organisms called “photobionts”. The photobiont is usually a green alga (Kingdom Plantae) but sometimes a golden or brown alga (Kingdom Chromista) or a cyanobacteria (Kingdom Bacteria). Some lichens, like the dog lichens (Peltigera spp.), have both green algae and cyanobacteria in them (it’s the party spot of the lichen world cause the cyanobacteria mix a mean nitrogen smoothie!). Some biologists even consider lichens as “self-contained mini-ecosystems”.

You’d think with our high powered microscopes, fancy computers, and DNA analysis that we would have this classification thing all worked out. But the more things change the more they stay the same, and scientists are still arguing about how we should classify the organisms on our planet. Whatever we decide call them, there’s one thing for certain-the lichens are completely indifferent to our puzzlement over their true nature.

While proofreading a scientific journal article I recently wrote, I found myself thinking “wow, this is really boring!” Scientists always write their journal articles in technical, impartial terms so as to sound as objective as possible. That’s part of the reason why scientific conferences are so enjoyable; you often get an opportunity to find out about the real problems scientists encountered while trying to conduct their field research. That got me thinking – what if scientists wrote the blunt, honest truth about our field research experiences instead of the dry, dispassionate scientific jargon that we feel compelled to write? So for your benefit here are some of the things a scientist might write in a journal article and what it might have actually meant.

Now you might think I’m joking but some of the things I mentioned really happened either to me or someone I know. Guess which ones! So remember if you are ever reading something written by a scientist, there’s often a much more interesting story behind it than anyone will ever know.

Seven years ago I went to northern Manitoba in search of a rare water-lily with American botanist John H. Wiersema. This water-lily appeared to be a fertile hybrid between two species: Fragrant Water-lily (Nymphaea odorata) and Pygmy Water-lily (N. leibergii). The only problem was that the specimen had been observed only once way back in 1948 by renowned botanist Homer J. (no not Simpson!) Scoggan. In order to determine if the water-lily was a unique species, we needed some fresh DNA!

After a fruitless (literally and figuratively) trip in 2007, Manitoba Hydro graciously flew both John and I up north to search a small river for the elusive water-lily in July of 2008. After a long boat ride, our persistence was rewarded with the first sighting of the water-lily in 60 years. John took DNA samples to give to his research associate Dr. Thomas Borsch to do the required genetic research. The genetic work confirmed that this plant is a fertile species of hybrid origin that does not reproduce with either of the parent species. Six years later, a peer-reviewed paper describing and naming the new species as Lori’s Water-lily (Nymphaea loriana) has been published the the NRC Press journal Botany (Read more here). The water-lily was sadly named after Dr. Wiersema’s late wife.

Most people do not realize how long and laborious the procedure to scientifically describe new species is. Herbarium specimens must be studied, field work undertaken, and often genetic and biochemical laboratory work performed. This process can take years, even decades to complete as scientists usually cannot spend all of their time doing research (other stuff like tedious paperwork usually gets in the way). Even after the research is all done, a species is not officially recognized until it has been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal. Further, the specimens collected must now be protected and cared for in perpetuity as they are the official documentation of the species’ existence, a task that The Manitoba Museum gladly undertakes. The dried, pressed specimens were glued onto special acid-free paper, labelled, databased, and stored in a climate-controlled vault for future reference and scientific research.

Now the next phase begins: conservation. This species is endemic to Canada, meaning that it is found nowhere else in the world. My colleagues and I estimate that there are only about 750 Lori’s Water-lilies in the world, making them extremely rare. Pollution of our northern waters from agriculture and natural resource development, and changes in water levels due to climate change are potential threats to this species here and in central Saskatchewan where two other populations are found. In a soon to be submitted paper, my colleagues and I will be recommending that this new species be protected under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, due to its extreme rarity.

For many years native prairies and forests were considered “waste lands” because they don’t produce food for people to eat. But increasingly scientists are finding that natural areas are actually essential for our food production system.

In a recently published paper in the Journal of Pollination Ecology (click here to read), I documented which prairie wildflowers provide food for the pollinators of crop plants like canola. Canola, being a mass flowering crop, produces primarily pollen and some nectar to entice insects, such as domestic honeybees, and native bumblebees and sweat bees, into pollinating them. Pollination by insects greatly increases the seed set of canola. However, before and after canola flowers, its pollinators need something to eat. Enter the wildflowers!

Wildflowers typically start blooming in late April and are in bloom until mid October, providing hungry pollinators with healthy, nutritious nectar and pollen to eat. Essentially, without wildflowers, the bees that we rely on to pollinate our canola crops would starve. And yet sadly these wild plants are being dug up, sprayed with herbicides, and choked out by exotic European weeds. Intensification of agriculture is the main factor causing the collapse in domestic honeybee populations as well as the endangerment of native bees and other pollinators like the monarch butterfly. Wild insects that need prairie plants, such as flower and bee flies, also play an import role in the biological control of pests like aphids.

And so I would like to suggest that we begin re-wilding our province lest our pollinator populations collapse to the point that we can no longer grow canola, sunflowers, or strawberries any more. Protecting the remaining prairies, oak savannahs, and tree bluffs is one important thing we can do. Another is to begin restoring the prairies alongside our farmlands. The Iowa Department of Highways has been replacing exotic weedy species in roadside ditches with native prairie plants creating beautiful stretches of highways that team with insect life and provide crop pollinators with habitat (click here to learn more). Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a useful tool for controlling pest populations on croplands while minimizing the impact on wild pollinators.

Lastly, please look to your own yard. Are you growing plants that are visited by pollinators? If not, consider growing at least some native wildflowers as our pollinators are adapted to feeding on them, not introduced exotics. I know that butterfly gardens are popular but really it’s the bees and flies that are doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to crop pollination. The more pollinators you nourish, the better your own garden yields of tomatoes, peppers, squashes, apples, and berries will be!

Still scared of getting stung by a bee? You probably shouldn’t be as we don’t have any “killer bees” in Manitoba. Our native bees are not aggressive (although some wasps and hornets can be) and will more than likely leave you alone unless you step on them or hit them. Also many wild bees are actually stingless! Check out www.PrairiePollination.ca for more information on the wild bees of Manitoba.

Piracy and botany are two words that do not usually occur together in a sentence. But in the golden days of exploration, seafaring men were not always vicious rogues intent on thievery. Well alright, a lot of them probably were. But one man among them combined piracy with a love of plants and that man was Captain William Dampier (1651-1715).

Although Charles Darwin is the naturalist usually associated with the Galapagos Islands, Dampier was actually the first Englishman to describe their flora and fauna. Unlike Darwin though, Dampier came to the islands as a deckhand on a stolen frigate! Dampier’s descriptions were often practical in nature, noting which trees could used to make fires (buttonwood!), and which plants and animals were edible. Sadly on the Galapagos, the edible animals turned out to be the extremely rare “land turtles” which sailors often brought on board their ships for fresh meat.

Later on Dampier’s voyages took him to the Indian Ocean where he was marooned by his crew near Sumatra. He eventually made it back to England where he published his memoirs in the 1697 book entitled “A New Voyage Round the World” which became an instant hit!

Dampier’s book was so popular that the British Admiralty gave him command of a ship, H.M.S. Roebuck. His mission was to sail to Western Australia to determine if it could be colonized, and collect some botanical specimens while there. Unfortunately Dampier’s ship was a bit of a lemon; it sank near the island of Ascension taking most of his precious dried plants and notes down with it. The 24 plant specimens he rescued were eventually donated to the Oxford University Herbarium where they still remain in a collections facility not unlike the one we have here at the Manitoba  Museum.

After a summer filled with ticks, mosquitoes and biting flies, I was ready for a pest-free pollinator survey at the Nature Conservancy preserves near Riding Mountain National Park this September. Autumn field work can be quite lovely with the beautiful fall colours, comfortable temperatures and migratory birds moving through. But you can’t always get what you want. The vicious thunderstorm that pelted my car with hazelnut-sized hail and forced me to pull over onto the side of the road just as I was leaving town forebode what was to come: crappy weather. I suppose that it was simply too much to ask for four weeks of rain-free field work this year though. I consider myself lucky to have had such nice weather in June, July and August.

After the relative calm of my June field work on Nature Conservancy land near Riding Mountain National Park, I was kept very busy observing insects in July and August. In total I saw approximately 64 insect species making over 1200 flower visits during my 24 hours of observation over an eight-day period. So far it seems that in the fescue prairie the bees (particularly the bumblebees) are doing most of the work. This is in contrast to the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve where flies are the most common flower visitors and Spruce Woods Provincial Park in which sand wasps are abundant pollinators.

Unfortunately, the pollinators weren’t the only hungry insects in the prairie; several of them were out for blood-MY blood! When I first got to the preserve, I had no idea what the mosquito situation would be like. I decided to wear my bug jacket and gloves just in case because if I didn’t need them, I could always take them off but if I needed them and didn’t have them, I’d end up doing the “I’ve-got-the-mosquito-willies-boogie” all afternoon. The gamble paid off. Shortly after reaching the hiking trail I was covered with a cloud of mosquitoes, black flies, and deer flies all trying to nip my flesh! Thank goodness for nylon field pants! After I got to one of my plots and stopped walking, several dragonflies noticed the insect buffet hovering around me and began dive bombing the blood suckers. Thank-you dragonflies!

The mosquitoes weren’t the only things biting in August; the plants were too! Mid-August is when the fruits of speargrass (Stipa spartea) ripen and fall off. Unfortunately they also have a habit of planting themselves in my socks and I had to stop every few minutes or so to pick them out! Ouch!

So why am I doing this? The purpose of my research is to identify which wild plants are most popular with pollinators so that appropriate seed mixes for restoration of fescue prairie can be identified. Restoring a prairie is expensive; by selecting a seed mix with the most popular flowers you can encourage the colonization of the maximum number of pollinator species, and hopefully create a more resilient ecosystem.

I’ll be back in the field in mid-September for one last pollinator survey. Is it too much to hope that the mosquitoes will be gone by then?

Last year I was able to attend a moss identification workshop given by Dr. Richard Caners. I had largely been ignoring the mosses because it is really hard to be good, all-around naturalist these days. My specialty is vascular plants. When I first started working here at the Museum, I had to learn how to identify fungi and lichens. Then I had to learn how to identify pollinators for my research (and trust me that’s not easy!). This year though I’m determined to collect and identify some mosses for an upcoming exhibit.

This July I spent several days hiking through the forests and rocky outcrops in Whiteshell Provincial Park. Although you’d think rocks would be devoid of life, there are all sorts of creatures making themselves at home on the granite outcrops out there. First the lichens show up, forming a thin crusty, coating. Then in the small cracks where there is a little bit more moisture, the mosses show up. Flowering plants like blueberries (which I thoroughly enjoyed eating!) then germinate in the moist, tiny pockets of soil that the lichens and mosses have created.

Instead of flowers, mosses produce tiny capsules that contain millions of spores. Some of these capsules explode, flinging the spores away from the parent plant; wind helps to disperse them further away. When I’m in the field looking at these unusual ecosystems I find myself wondering what it would look like if I were an insect. Suddenly these tiny plants would be huge trees with massive spiky leaves. Their intricate flying spores would be dangerous projectiles. Among the mosses there would be a stunning diversity of minute insects and bizarre animals like water bears, rotifers, and velvet worms. It would be like getting sucked into a Dr. Seuss book!

So if you’re planning on going hiking in the woods this summer, take a moment to look closely at the moss forests that you’ve probably never noticed before.

The highlight of the project was travelling to some of the remaining native prairies in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to film short videos with pollination biologists. One of the biggest problems with filming plants on the prairie is the unrelenting wind. Videographer Robert Zirk had to try to film flowers that kept flopping around, and insects that were getting blown off course. Further, the sound of the wind in the microphones sometimes made it difficult to hear what we were saying. Hauling equipment around in the brutal 30 degree heat during our trip to Spruce Woods Provincial Park wasn’t all that fun either.

Our worst luck occurred down at the Tall-grass Prairie Preserve where we very nearly missed the blooming of the rare Western Prairie Fringed Orchid. Although we did get some images of it, it was a very dry year and the poor little plants we found were looking a little parched! Fortunately, 2013 was a good year for another rare orchid we filmed a video on: Small White Lady’s-slipper.