Hiking Washington, DC Nov 10-11, 2014

[Splintercat]

Nice report, Dave! Making another trip there in a few weeks, and you report reminded me to stop by the national portrait gallery - haven't been there in many years.

Thanks for posting!

Tom

[vibramhead]

Nice report, Dave! Making another trip there in a few weeks, and you report reminded me to stop by the national portrait gallery - haven't been there in many years.

Thanks for posting!

Tom

t,

If you haven't been there, check out the National Museum of the American Indian, on the Mall just east of the Air & Space Museum. It's a beautiful building, and has the best cafeteria of any museum in D.C., with a variety of traditional American Indian foods from around the nation. Has some pretty cool art, too.

[BurnsideBob]

Vibramhead, thanks for the tip on the National Museum of the American Indian.

My wife and I visited it on a prior trip and I found it fascinating and strongly agree that its worth a visit. One of the most striking and surprising things was the amount of exhibit space devoted to PNW tribes. All thru school we are inundated with info and history of the east coast and plains tribes, so I was really excited to see so much from the area where I grew up (Northern California) and where I've lived since (OR and WA).

Both my wife and I were disappointed with the cafe. We had heard many great things about it and were hoping to experience some of the foods we had read or heard about over the years: camas root, acorn porridge, the million variations of pemmican, traditionally prepared poultry and game (grouse, goose, duck, buffalo, deer, elk, moose, bear, etc.), dried & smoked salmon, jerked meats, traditional salad greens like miners lettuce and oxalis, native fruits, nuts, and berries, birds eggs of different kinds, traditionally prepared maize and squash. None of that. While the food may have been some tribes traditional food, it was not prepared in accordance with tribal tradition or preparation/cooking technique. On top of that it was cafeteria service, expensive, and portions were small. Heck, there was a hotel in Red Lodge, Montana that served all the different kinds of game, and I had fiddle head ferns as a side at the space needle in Seattle. My back yard has more authentic foods--morels, ferns, service berries, salal berries, native black berries, thimble berries, oxalis, miners lettuce, acorns, camas, deer, quail, rabbit, squirrels, and wild filbert--than that cafe.

Kinda went off on a rant, didn't I? That's how disappointed I was.

So it turns out the food court at the Air and Space museum is both a better deal and meets expectations. Go to the Indian Museum, but don't eat there if you want authentic native american fare.