Wabanaki Enjoying Nut Milk and Butter for Centuries
In the Press-Herald’s Vegan Kitchen, by Avery YAle Kamila
Published on November 8, 2020
“The Wabanaki were not domesticating wild animals,” said ethnobotanist, culinary historian and author E. Barrie Kavasch, who has documented both nut milk and nut butter as indigenous traditional foods in the northeastern United States.
“Doubtless Rosier was referring to other substances used in another way that he was totally unaware of,” Kavasch said. “In Maine especially, the Maine Indians used the resources from the nuts, which are enhanced by roasting, cooking and drying.”
As it turned out, by not domesticating livestock for dairy milk, they were able for centuries to avoid diseases that killed many Europeans.