Rubaboo is a common

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

porridge Porridge is a food made by heating, soaking or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, fruit, or syrup to make a sweet cereal ...

consumed by ''coureurs des bois'' and ''voyageurs'' (French fur traders) and

Métis people The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They hav ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. This dish is traditionally made of

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

s and/or

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

, with grease (bear or pork) and a thickening agent (

bread Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

) that makes up the base of the stew.

Pemmican Pemmican () (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigeno ...

and

maple sugar Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in Canada and the Northeastern United States, prepared from the sap of the maple tree ("maple syrup, maple sap"). Sources Three species of maple trees in the genus ''Acer (plant), Acer'' are predomina ...

were also commonly added to the

mixture In chemistry, a mixture is a material made up of two or more different chemical substances which can be separated by physical method. It is an impure substance made up of 2 or more elements or compounds mechanically mixed together in any proporti ...

. Rubaboo that is made by the Plains Métis is often made with pemmican,

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

prairie chicken ''Tympanuchus'' is a small genus of birds in the grouse family. They are commonly referred to as prairie-chickens. Taxonomy The genus ''Tympanuchus'' was introduced in 1841 by the German zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger for the gre ...

or sage hen and a wide variety of wild vegetables such as wild

parsnip The parsnip (''Pastinaca sativa'') is a root vegetable closely related to carrot and parsley, all belonging to the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is a biennial plant usually grown as an annual. Its long taproot has cream-colored skin an ...

(lii naavoo)

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

turnip The turnip or white turnip ('' Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''rapa'') is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties a ...

, and

asparagus Asparagus (''Asparagus officinalis'') is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus (genus), Asparagus'' native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. Description ...

that can all be added to the food with preference. The thickened mixture was later re-served as “rowschow” (re-chaud). Other sources describe it as consisting primarily of boiled pemmican, with thickening agents added when available.Nute, Grace Lee.''The Voyageur''. Minnesota Historical Society, , p. 55

Origins

The

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

is a blend of the French word ''

roux Roux () is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or Cooking oil, oil on the stove top, blended until smoo ...

'' (a thickener used in gravies and sauces) with the word for soup ("''aboo''") from an Algonquian language, such as Anishnaabe ''naboo''. Although

pemmican Pemmican () (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigeno ...

can be added to the stew, Rubaboo and pemmican remain separate dishes, but are culturally linked closely to each other in Metis history.

Sources

* Arts, A. A. (2009, January 1). About Us. Retrieved 22 November 2019 from http://albertaaboriginalarts.ca/ * Barkwell, Lawrence J.; Dorion, Leah; Hourie, Audreen (2006). Métis Legacy (Volume II) Michif Culture, Heritage, and Folkways. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications Inc. and Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute. . * Gordon, Irene Ternier (1 February 2011). A People on the Move: The Métis of the Western Plains. Heritage House Publishing Co. p. 20 Retrieved 21 November 2019. * Weaver, S. M., Brockway, R. W., & Blue, A. W. (1982). Book Reviews. Canadian Journal of Native Studies, Vol. 2, Pp. 395–414., Vol. 2, 395–414.Retrieved 22 November 2019 from https://iportal.usask.ca/index.php?t=display_solr_search&having=4303766&sid=168308311 * PEMMICAN.(1961). Nutrition Reviews, 19(3), 73–75. Retrieved 23 November 2019 from https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/19/3/73/2672002?redirectedFrom=fulltext

References

Métis cuisine Porridges Native American cuisine Fur trade {{canada-cuisine-stub

Origins

See also

Sources

References