^{Kitty Hendricks-Miller at a recent Wampanoag cooking demonstration. (Photos courtesy of Sustainable CAPE).}

Wampanoag Cooking Demonstration Comes to the Provincetown Public Library

by Steve Desroches

It doesn’t get much more New England than stuffed quahogs and clam chowder. The roots of local cuisine are often attributed to the variety of cultures that came to America and created a melded food culture. But little to no thought is given to the fact that much of American culture is built on the foundation of Native American customs and traditions. Here on Cape Cod, many of the culinary delights that are synonymous with the region come from Wampanoag culture. However, ever since the colonization of Wampanoag territory and subsequent laws banning their language, customs, and way of being, the general knowledge of Wampanoag culture has been unknown to the mainstream. In fact, the Wampanoag and their culture are often spoken of in the past tense as if they were frozen in time or entirely non-existent. That of course is not true. To illustrate that point Kitty Hendricks-Miller, Indian Education Coordinator of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, will be at the Provincetown Public Library this Saturday to present Harvest Highlight: Wampanoag Spring Cooking, in which she’ll share traditional Wampanoag cooking methods as she prepares stuffed quahogs and clam chowder. 

“It sparks conversation,” says Hendricks-Miller of the presentation with which she travels Cape Cod and beyond. “It encourages others to share their own cultural experiences with cooking.”

Produced in partnership with Sustainable CAPE, an organization that promotes and celebrates local food and agriculture, Harvest Highlight is an interactive event as Hendricks-Miller narrates her own cooking practices, noting what is traditionally Wampanoag and what has evolved and adapted over time. Stuffed quahogs are not part of traditional Wampanoag cuisine, but shellfish are a major part of the culture, both in cooking and wampum, the beads used in making decorations and jewelry as well as a historical currency. And dairy was not part of Wampanoag cooking in the past, so they did not make chowders, but rather soups in which shellfish would be boiled down for the salt flavoring. This precursor to chowder would often be a daily fixture in a Wampanoag household, as it was, and is, customary to have a soup to offer any visitors to the home. 

Hendricks-Miller also addresses how Wampanoag cuisine has changed over the years, particularly the Cape Verdean influence as the Wampanoag and immigrants from the African archipelago have strong ties to this day. While the beginning of the bond between the two communities isn’t specifically known, Hendricks-Millers notes that often one of the first stops whaling ships made when they left Provincetown, New Bedford, or Nantucket, were the Cape Verdean islands, and many Cape Verdeans have settled in southeastern Massachusetts in traditional Wampanoag land. Unlike on land, whaling ships at sea were egalitarian, and a man of any background or race could be a captain, including many Wampanoag and Cape Verdean whalers. While interracial marriages and relationships were forbidden and at times illegal, many Wampanoag and Cape Verdeans formed families, further exchanging cultural practices. Just how present the Wampanoag people and culture has been throughout Massachusetts history is coming into a clearer picture with a general increase in interest about the tribe.

“Over the last 20 to 30 years there’s been a significant interest in us and our culture,” says Hendricks-Miller. “We are educating people about us and that we are still here. To ensure that people know our culture and language is still very much alive, we do that through education.” 

Hendricks-Miller says that she learned her love of cooking from her mom and that within Wampanoag culture food builds community and is a way to reach out to others from different cultures, a phenomenon that is of course global. Beyond cooking, the Wampanoag of Mashpee, Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard and Herring Pond in Bourne, created a landmark stage production titled We Are the Land, which is being performed at the Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, April 30 and May 1. Performed and created by the Nutahkeemun Arts Collective and the Wampanoag Nation Singers & Dancers, We Are the Land had its debut in 2022 in Plymouth, United Kingdom, and tells the story of the Wampanoag from pre-contact to colonization and Christianization and fighting back to preserve their way of life. We Are the Land next went to Boston in 2023 for a performance at the Cutler Majestic Theater. Hendricks-Miller, who appears in the storytelling and music-based show, says they do hope to bring it to Provincetown one day, as it would be an important performance in the place where the Mayflower first landed. We Are the Land is also a revolutionary theatrical work as it is a Wampanoag created production telling a story of a people who have been in this region for at least 12,000 years who were largely silenced for the past 400 years.

“Our director told us we need to decolonize the theater,” says Hendricks-Miller. “I thought, ‘Wow, I guess that does need to happen.’”

Sustainable CAPE presents Harvest Highlight: Wampanoag Spring Cooking with Kitty Hendricks-Miller at the Provincetown Public Library, 356 Commercial St., on Saturday, May 3 at 1 p.m. The event is free, but capacity is limited and registration is required. To do so visit SustainableCAPE.org. For more information call the Provincetown Public Library at 508.487.7094 or visit provincetownlibrary.org. For more information on We Are the Land visit wampanoagnationsingersanddancers.com.