Why Isn’t Native American Food Hip? (opens in new tab)

Navajo aren't really a good example of "Native American" for cuisine purposes (although things like fry bread probably are the most recognizable instances of Native American cuisine for the general public).

The Navajo are fairly recent arrivals to the American Southwest, they are Athabascan in origin and likely not far removed from East Asia.

The Navajo arrived in the American Southwest from Canada/Alaska in the late 1300/ early 1400's. And the Spanish arrived to the area not much more than 100 years later bringing horses, sheep and European crops which were adapted to some extent by the natives.

Contrast that with groups like the Hopi or other Pueblo tribes who are descendants of peoples with thousands of years history in the area and who farmed native crops such as corn and squash for many many generations before the first Navajo (or Navajo ancestor to be proper) ever set foot in the area.

Point being, Navajo food isn't really Native American food much behind the level of Tacos. There was significant European influence during most of the time Navajo culture developed.

I think a lot of "real" Native American cuisine was probably something like berries and dried meat mixed with fat wrapped in a piece of skin. Or some inner pine bark if times were rough. Except for the farming tribes that had little bitty corn and some primitive squash. Probably not really that tasty IMOP.

Not really. Lamb and mutton are generally expensive meats and can be more difficult to find since the major chains tend not to carry them.

I once had a shepherd's pie in the US that was made with beef!

I didn't realize it was suppposed to have lamb until I was older - I grew up thinking it was a beef meal.

Presumably because they weren't able to source any lamb at all.

This rings true. I grew up eating a lot of quasi-traditional syrian food, both from my grandmother (1st generation in the US) and at church (Eastern Orthodox with a good amount of the service in arabic, and some folks that didn't speak english). Traditionally, these were made with lamb, but I had always eaten them with beef because that was what was available/affordable and folks got used to it.

Lamb & mutton aren’t very popular in the US. In my experience, people who are used to beef expect lamb to be more or less like beef—and since beef definitely should not taste like lamb, they end up thinking lamb has an “off” taste and dismiss it without letting it stand on its own merits.

Thankfully here around San Francisco there are some butchers where you can source good lamb, and the ethnic cuisines include enough lamb that local Westerners are perhaps a bit more accustomed to it.

Mutton and goat are extremely rare.

Though, I suppose they are awesome enough that they became tradition pretty quickly.

Food is like code, keep updating, or lose out to someone who does.

Edit: Guess it hit someone close to home. Thanks for contributing no feedback other than hitting the "I don't like this post" button, really makes debugging easier /s