OKMULGEE, Okla. — As winter turns to spring and the bright purple blossoms of the redbud trees begin to bloom, Cherokee chef Bradley James Dry knows it’s time to look for morels and a staple of Oklahoma’s Native American cuisine: wild green ones onions.
Wild onions are among the first foods to grow in the South in late winter, and generations of indigenous people there have made alliums the focus of an annual communal event. Every Saturday from February through May there is a wild onion dinner somewhere in Oklahoma.
The bright green stems of the onions reach a few inches above the dried leaves that crunch beneath Dry’s feet on a crisp March morning as he hunts through parks and empty lots near downtown Tulsa. The land he forages straddles the Muscogee Nation and the Cherokee Nation, and he thinks of his elisi — grandmother in Cherokee — who taught him how to pick and cook wild onions.
“To be able to cook like that, to be able to cook the things that my grandmother would cook for strangers, that’s really cool,” Dry explains as he scans the forest floor. He makes sure he doesn’t harvest too much and only takes what he needs.
“Traditionally, what I grew up with, you just boil them in a little bit of water and then fry them with scrambled eggs,” Dry said.
That’s the way wild onions are typically cooked for large parties, a side dish of vegetables with a familiar peppery flavor, served alongside fried pork, beans, fry bread, chicken dumplings, corn bread, and safke – a soup made with cracked corn and lye from wood ash which is common among tribes in the Southeast, including the Muscogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and Seminole.
Dry likes to combine tradition with contemporary, such as using wild onions to make omelettes and kimchi.
“I’ve even used them to make salsa or chimichurri for steaks,” he said.
The next Saturday morning, at least a hundred people await the opening of the tribal community center in Okmulgee, the capital of the Muscogee Nation, about 40 miles south of Tulsa. For the second year in a row, the community is gathering for a wild onion dinner to raise travel funds for Claudia McHenry, a tribal citizen who hopes to compete in this year’s Miss Indian World Pageant in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dozens of people cook and distribute food, there is a silent auction and a local mekko – a Muscogee spiritual leader – welcomes the opening.
For the past several generations, churches in Oklahoma — particularly United Methodist Churches in Native American communities — have used wild onion dinners to raise money for church bills and annual dues, said Chebon Kernell, a mekko for his community and member of a UMC spiritually.
“But as the years went by, it became a huge community event,” he said.
McHenry said seeing the community behind her gives her the courage she needs.
“Just to see people physically being there for me,” she said. “It gives me a lot of good emotions and stimulates me and pushes me to move forward towards my goals.”
Over the next three hours, hundreds show up and pay fifteen dollars for a plate of food to send her that way. For many, helping McHenry or the local church is the only thing that could improve Hogwarts’ undeniable appeal. And nowhere is that more true than at Springfield UMC in Okemah, another 35 miles south, the following Saturday.
It’s not unusual for people to come from Arkansas, Kansas or Texas for a piece of that community’s famous fried pork and a pile of wild onions. Some travel so far because they are part of the Muscogee diaspora. Others simply follow the church signs along a dusty gravel road until the canopy opens onto an endless field of waving grass, still copper from winter’s rest.
For nearly two decades, on the first Saturday in April, hundreds of people lined up on the porch of the church’s small gathering room for a plate of food. And every year you’ll find Carol Tiger there, elbow deep in a bowl of baking mix.
Everyone calls Tiger the head chef.
“I just let them know what to do,” she said, sending a wave of laughter through the kitchen.
In years past, Tiger and other church elders took their grandchildren to pick onions, but this year they expect 500 to 600 hungry people, so they bought their onions cleaned and chopped for $40 a gallon. The families of the church also contribute a gallon each.
Elderly people tell stories from the rocking chairs on the porch, children play in the nearby woods and vendors sell beadwork and clothing. The small field surrounding the church is cleared and lined and filled with vehicles with tribal tags from all over the state. Men fry pork in a giant pan over an outdoor fire, while women fill the dining room with the warmth of home-cooked food.
After clearing their plates, attendees enjoy a piece of cake or a bowl of grape dumplings – a dessert traditionally made from wild grape juice and now often made with frozen juice and canned cookies. They stay up talking and eating well into the afternoon, and are certainly sad when it’s time to go.
But it’s mid-April and wild onion dinner season isn’t over yet. There’s always next Saturday, just down the road.
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Graham Lee Brewer is a member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team.
