Salish Bounty

Traditional Coast Salish Foods

Traditional Coast Salish cuisine includes over 280 kinds of plants, birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, shellfish and other marine life. Contemporary Coast Salish cooks incorporate both traditional and newly introduced ingredients, to create healthy alternatives for families and communities still struggling with loss of terrain, drastically changed lifestyles, and imposed industrial foods. 

This PDF of traditional Coast Salish foods was compiled from a 2003 survey of 130 archaeological sites in King, Kitsap, and Snohomish counties, and information collected by Northwest Indian College from ethnographic accounts and Coast Salish elders, hunters, fishermen, and gatherers. Courtesy of the Burke Museum and Elise Krohn.

"If you look at what people ate five or six generations ago on an annual basis, there are hundreds of types of foods. Research now is showing that most Americans eat less than twelve foods on a regular basis. In this very short period of a couple of generations we've gone from an incredibly complex diet, eating with the seasons, eating many types of foods, to eating just a few." — Elise Krohn, traditional foods specialist, Northwest Indian College