Native American Ingenuity: Food Edition   The scope of the
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington,
D.C., is mind-boggling—825,000 items representing more than
12,000 years of history—and one of the really fun aspects of the
place is learning about all the important things Native
Americans invented. In 2004, National Geographic put together a
list of 16 Native American innovations—including duck decoys and
syringes—to celebrate the opening of the museum. The NMAI sent
This Week From Indian Country Today a longer list of things
Native Americans invented or discovered. Which then led us to
American Indian Contributions to the World: 15,000 Years of
Inventions and Innovations, by Kay Marie Porterfield and Emory
Dean Keoke. With these great resources as inspiration, we’ve
done our best to parse thousands of years of Native American
discoveries into categories. This week the focus is on food. Bon
appétit.  Avocados: Farmers in the Valley of Mexico, a highlands
plateau in Central Mexico, first d