Simon Ortiz "How to Make a Good Chili Stew"

"How to Make a Good Chili Stew" not only gives an in depth description of the process of making a traditional Native American stew, but also shows how cooking in this culture is a kind of ritualistic practice. The Speaker longs for the traditional ingredients that were used in the past but are no longer available to her because she was removed from the land she had always known as home. Thinking of Native Americans as a "ritualistic" people is a common stereotype: we can all conjure up an image in our minds of a tribe dancing around a fire in elaborate feather headdresses and paint chanting warrior cries. This recipe and Ortiz's frequent interjections are a look into the daily lives of a culture and people most of us are unfamiliar with. And we find that, indeed, Native Americans are a ritualistic culture but not in the way the majority and the media have made them out to be. They take the time to appreciate things many people are blind to. In the recipe under the caption Further Directions to Make it Good the Speaker advises the reader to "Look all around you once in a while" and goes into further description of her physical surroundings, in this case La Plata Mountains in Southern Colorado. Right here we can see that for this culture cooking was more than just that, it was a time to soak in and recognize your presence and place among nature.