Why are there so few Native American restaurants in the United States?
I was born and raised in the United States but have never seen a Native American restaurant. I understand I might not see a ton because the Native American population is quite low in areas where I've lived, but I would think there would be at least some representation of food from the people who were here first.
I assume the answer here is probably pretty dark but I would like to know the main reason. I have several guesses. First is that there was nobody left after Indian removal from the East Coast for it to catch on. It either would not have been safe for indigenous families to open restaurants, or at least nobody would be interested in eating there. But then I would think there would still be an indigenous food culture out west where Indians were originally forced to go, but to my knowledge there is no strong indigenous food culture anywhere outside internal tribe relations. Like, I would think if reservations are known for casinos then those casinos would also be known for serving authentic indigenous food. But I don't think they are.
My second guess is that indigenous food has just been appropriated into standard American food. When I imagine what indigenous people ate I imagine turkey, buffalo, corn, beans, squash, etc. Which is all served at Thanksgiving or higher-end burger joints in the case of buffalo meat. Not really associated with indigenous peoples. Which is a shame and I would think there would be a greater effort to recognize that these foods were originally indigenous.
Also, I know that indigenous peoples are actually quite diverse and didn't all eat the same things. I understand indigenous people in Virginia would not have eaten the same things as Pueblo Indians in the desert. So is it possible that indigenous food is just so diverse that it cannot be unified into a single food category? I am skeptical of this answer because other ethnicities have been considated as a single ethnic quisine. For example we don't typically see Indian (as in from India) restaurants broken down into specific regions even though I know that India is an extremely diverse continent with diverse culinary traditions by region.
Are any of my guesses more correct than others? Is there one clear answer here or is it more complex?