Aura’s

At the Grand Canyon, we are blessed with many of the edibles found in the desert southwest, with availability of plants and animals whose native habitat ranges from the Canyon’s low-lying desert, both wet and dry, all the way up 8,000 feet to Ponderosa pine elevations. Since we believe most of our audience comes from the desert regions of the four-corners states, though, my plan is to emphasize those foods of the desert one may stumble upon just a few steps from home, just like the ones at Phantom Ranch where our play is set. The desert has provided people with sustenance for thousands of years (though recent émigrés to it are unfamiliar with most desert foods). With grocery prices being what they are, the time seems ripe to turn to the desert to make thanksgiving a year ‘round event. For now, I’m going with a staple unique to the Americas (until 1492 anyway):

Desert Southwest Entrée
- Popcorn soup

It’s show biz, so why not this entrée from the Pueblo Indian diet of 1491 ? This wasn’t served outside of Terra Incognita at this time, however, because not only hadn’t the rest of the world invented movies yet; it hadn’t heard of corn, either.

Beverage - Ocotillo cooler

Grand Canyon springs water sweetened with flowers of the ocotillo cactus.

The family ancestries of most of our guests lie in regions far removed from our Terra Incognita location. My plan is to offer foods prepared the way they were in many different lands before Columbus sailed and brought back to the “Old World” so many of the foods modern cultures consider their own. (Sine can’t imagine his Russian geologist friends without vodka, for instance. “But how”, I ask him, “could vodka exist before the potato it’s made from eventually got from the Americas to mother Russia?” Courtesy of Columbus etc. No help from the Russians) “Rye?” says he. I don’t know. It’s made from potatoes now.

This is a way for those of us who do not originally hail from Terra Incognita to rediscover our roots. (That wouldn’t include yucca, or the potato, by the way.)

Italy

Side - Flatbread with cheese and herbs

In 1491 Naples, they didn’t make what everybody today calls “pizza”. This Naples staple of everyman’s diet is not smothered in tomato sauce, because in 1491 tomatoes were unknown outside of Terra Incognita. It is made of wheat flour, olive oil, lard, cheese, and seasoned with just the fresh herbs available around Naples. But it’s the closest anybody would have to “pizza” in 1491.