Wild rice -- manoomin -- is still harvested the traditional way by the Anishanabe, or Ojibwe, people of the Great Lakes region. Ricers and their families take canoes into the fields and hand-harvest the rice. After participating in the harvest, Loretta helps to prepare Winona LaDuke's favorite wild rice and maple syrup cake, which accompanies a lakeside first rice feast of buffalo, wild rice and cranberry-stuffed acorn squash, buffalo stew and ruby-red swamp tea.

More than 6,000 years before the Acadian French (today's Cajuns) arrived in Louisiana, there were native peoples living and fishing in Louisiana's bayou country. A historical tour of this Gulf Coast region provides a lesson about native influences on Cajun cooking. Loretta cooks sassafras shrimp gumbo and spicy alligator sauce piquant.