The Four Sisters Corn Beans Squash And Sunchokes

     According to the USDA "To the Iroquois people, corn, beans, and squash are the Three Sisters, the physical and spiritual sustainers of life. These life-supporting plants were given to the people when all three miraculously sprouted from the body of Sky Woman's daughter, granting the gift of agriculture to the Iroquois nations."

     Corn, beans, and squash are recognized by the World Health Organization as a complete food source, providing all nutrients necessary for survival, all of the protein, all of the vitamins and minerals, completely replacing the need for meat or any other food, which is why it created the foundation for Iroquois agriculture. The three are planted in the same prepared dirt mound, the corn grows straight up, the beans climb the corn stalk chasing the light, and the squash shades the ground and keeps weeds down. The story of The Three Sisters describes corn, beans, and squash as three sisters that live together in a field and are harvested by an Indian boy.

     The story of The Three Sisters tells the different harvesting times, the squash is harvested first in the late summer, and something like an acorn squash would still be around at Thanksgiving. Then in the early fall you would harvest the beans and dry them, and in the late fall you would harvest the corn. The corn and beans combine to make a complete protein without needing meat, and the squash adds vitamins and nutrients, creating a perfect food if you eat them together.

     One way to do this is with succotash, a dish inherited from the native Americans that brought it to the first Thanksgiving, and while succotash can be made with a variety of different ingredients added to corn and beans, I make Three Sisters Succotash every year for Thanksgiving and here's my recipe. Get acorn squashes, enough to cut them in half and have one half for each person being served, also buy frozen sweet corn and frozen beans like lima beans or kidney beans, not green beans. Cut the acorn squashes in half and remove the point off of the one half, scoop out the seeds, then fill the halves with half frozen corn and half baby lima beans mixed together, wrap with foil and bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350 Fahrenheit (177 C), or until the corn, beans, and squash are fully cooked. Serve with 2 teaspoons of butter on the corn and beans while hot, and sprinkle with sea salt.

     From the book I published last year, Macro 4:1:1 For Life (available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle): "Succotash made with baked acorn squash halves filled with sweet kernel corn and baby lima beans is lacking in fat and protein, but if you add 2 teaspoons of butter, it becomes a perfect 4:1:1 food." According to the Macro 4:1:1 acceptable macronutrient distribution range (AMDR), when counted in grams carbohydrates need to make up four times as much of your diet as protein and fat, so while the World Health Organization recognizes the three sisters as a perfect food, I only recognize it as a perfect food once you add the two teaspoons of butter. Every year vegetarians attend Thanksgiving and people wonder what to give them, you can give them succotash served hot with butter and sea salt. It's a perfect food. If they're vegan, offer palm, coconut, or olive oil if you have it, or they can just skip the butter, since according to the World Health Organization succotash is a complete food source all on its own, and then vegetarians can eat the other side dishes and the desserts as well.

     And then there is the little known 4th sister, like corn she grows tall and straight, but like beans she follows the sun, she is the Sunchoke, also known as Jerusalem Artichoke. It is the domesticated sunflower that the natives used like potatoes, and that they shared with the Pilgrims that arrived. The sunflower seeds that you see now are mostly descended from the Russian sunflower seeds where Russia took America's best sunflowers bred for large seeds and bred them up into the sunflower seeds that are so ubiquitous across the Ukraine and Western Russia that they are literally the yellow of the Ukrainian flag, with the blue representing the sky over yellow fields of sunflowers. But sunflower seeds and Jerusalem artichokes are both descended from the sunflowers domesticated by the native Americans over hundreds or thousands of years. Sunchokes still produce flower heads with seeds, but they are small and were considered sacrificial to the birds in the story of the three sisters.

     The story of the three sisters continues to talk of the fourth sister who was planted to the north of the other 3 sisters as a guardian to them. She would grow tall like sister corn, but would follow the sun like sister bean, which the heads of sunflowers and sunchokes do until they become laden with seeds, and then become frozen in place towards the rising Sun. So when the birds arrive first thing in the morning they see full set heads of sunchoke heads ready for them to eat, and so the birds go and eat those seeds which keeps them from eating the corn and the peas. And the sunchokes can still be dug up later because they were also being grown as a rootstock that looks similar to small sweet potatoes, they were used to make sort of a grits as well as fry cakes, as well as being eaten in all forms both raw and cooked, or they could be left in the ground to regrow the next year as a perennial.