Interestingly, I came across this the other day when I wanted to make Navajo fry bread and the standard explanation for juniper ash is that it makes niacin available from the corn. Other explanations: it intensifies the blue-ish color and people say they prefer the taste.
Is this like using wood ash to make a weak lye for hominy? Juniper ash is made mostly from burned needles, rather than wood branches. Saw modern Navajo & Hopi doing it in an aluminum pan over a BBQ grill.
The berries themselves are used as a flavoring in some German cooking and are supposed to help with a variety of ills, mainly urinary tract infections.
Fry bread uses wheat flour,lard, powdered milk (if using the Hopi recipes. Ash in some recipes, not in others and seemingly not related to the corn used in mush (and tamales). Seems strange they added powdered milk if they are lactose intolerant. Also, while the vids I watched stressed the ingredients were from government commodity rations, I wondered when powdered milk was added? That’s something I first recall seeing in the 1950s.
Good question. It might be that weak lye action that releases the calcium for absorption.
Juniper ash is made mostly from burned needles, rather than wood branches.
That's a good thing to know before making a really bad batch of corn mush. I don't think I'd emulate their use of an aluminum pan though.