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Creek Food & Cooking

Near by each dwelling, the Creek women maintained a small garden plot for their family. Their main food supply, however, was grown in a much larger field which belonged to the entire town. Corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, and melons were plentiful. Wild fruits were also available for their use. They dried meat, corn, pumpkin, peaches and apples. When beef dried, they sliced the meat into very thin slices and placed it on clean cloths in the hot sun on the roof of the house. They turned this jerked meat over several times a day. Hickory nuts and acorn were pounded and the mashed nut meat was placed into boiling water. The oil was then skimmed off the top and used in much of their cooking, especially in preparing hominy and corn cakes. Deer was the main meat eaten, but they also fished. Sweet corn was preserved by boiling it until tender. Then the kernels were cut off the cob. This, too, was processed in the same manner as the meat and fruit. The corn was cooked with lye or mixed with ashes and beaten to make hominy grits or meal. Their most important food was sofkey which was beaten corn cooked with water and lye. This would even be consumed after setting two or three days and turning sour. Another Creek dish was "blue dumplings" which was made of beaten corn and with bluish burned shells of the field pea added. Abuske or "cold flour" was a drink enjoyed by the Creeks.