Tres Hermanas: Corn, Beans and Squash

When I imagined starting an Austin, Texas based, vegetarian, Tex-Mex culinary blog, I made a long list of topics that I wanted to talk about. I have a long list of favorite foods to cook that need to be converted to proper recipes and I am already enjoying the process of recipe testing. But of all the potential topics, it was hard to imagine the best starting place. What would make a meaningful first blog post, something future posts could begin to build on?

I knew what I did not want to do. I knew I did not want some boring post about how to get your protein. I began to imagine something about pantry staples for this regional cookery… And then, I imagined something even more fundamental, which ironically, took me back to how to get your protein.

In cooking, we sometimes refer to Old World foods (crops) and New World foods (crops). We mean where the food originated and evolved, prior to the colonization of the Americas by the Europeans.

Part of my personal philosophy about eating is that people and whole native foods evolved together and that one should eat whole foods, known to our bodies – and certainly, eat nothing created after World War II!

The Europeans brought to the Americas apples, apricots, citrus, various melons and cruciferous vegetables, not to mention the Old World spices, black pepper, cinnamon and cardamom. And the New World gave us the avocado, the potato, tomato, chocolate, corn, many of our beans – and wild rice (as opposed to Asian rice).

This brings me to area I truly want to talk about: Tres Hermanas, The Three Sisters. The Three Sisters are corn, beans and squash, native plants to the Americas, which were traditionally planted together. The beans, climbing beans, were planted as companion plants to the corn. They grew together and the beans would climb the corn stalk as the season progressed to harvest. The squash provided ground cover. For the next season, the beans gave nitrogen to the ground and the squash, mulch.

Everybody knows that rice and beans, eaten together, are a complete protein. And in this context, we do mean the Asian rice which came to the Americas. But to the native Americans, corn and beans, together, were a complete food. The native corn lacks Lysine and Tryptophan – which the body needs to create its protein – but the bean has both. And, so, what grows together, goes together. This is the foundation of American cookery.

Hold this consideration, as we go forward together into vegetarian Tex-Mex cooking.

– The Vegetexican