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Sioux Corn Meal Wasna
This recipe was submitted by Rosemond Goins on behalf of her mother, Eva Nichols of Rapid City, South Dakota, for
the South Dakota Centennial Cookbook, 1889-1989. Ms. Nichols was then an 83-year-old Indian advocate. There is a similar but more modernized
recipe in The American Ethnic Cookbook for Students. Wasna is a kind of power bar,
rolled into balls, that hearkens back to when most of the Lakhota/Nakota/Dakota people were settled farmers in the midwest.
Browning the corn meal reproduces the flavor of the parched corn used as travel supplies by Native Americans across the
country.
2-1/2 pounds corn meal
1/2 box raisins (1/2 pound)
2 cups sugar
1 cup tallow (render from suet, or substitute
solid shortening)
Equipment: two cake pans to brown flour,
saucepan to melt tallow, wax paper
1. Pour corn meal into two large cake pans, and
brown 30 minutes in a 325-degree oven.
2. "Soak raisins in enough water to moisten every
raisin."
3. Stir corn meal and let it cool.
4. Mix corn meal, sugar, and raisins.
5. Melt tallow in a saucepan over low heat. Don't
let it get too hot or catch fire.
6. Mix melted tallow thoroughly with corn meal
mixture.
7. Roll wasna in into 1-1/2-inch balls, and wrap
in wax paper.
8. Chill or freeze to harden.
Serve as a trail snack.
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