I have always loved the Native American tradition of giving each month’s full moon a special name that celebrates the season of the year. November’s full moon, which falls this coming Friday night, is the beaver moon.

It marks the time in autumn when beavers get ready to move into their lodges for the winter. It reminds us humans that we, too, should prepare for the cold weather to come.

The Nolumbeka Project, a Greenfield-based organization that honors the heritage and culture of Northeastern Indigenous Peoples, will celebrate the Beaver Moon with a cookbook talk on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 1 p.m. at Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls.

The speaker will be Angela C. Marcellino, author of “The True Natives of Cape Cod Massachusetts and Their Food Ways” (MindStir Media, 120 pages, $19.99 in paperback).

Marcellino is a member of the MashpeeWampanoag tribe. Her book gives a brief history of her family members, who have long been prominent in Mashpee, as well as some background information about the town. Her family has lived there for generations, and the tribe’s headquarters is in Mashpee.

She calls her tribe’s history “a story of celebration and resiliency against all odds.”

She explains that her personal heritage is mixed. While her mother’s family was Indigenous, her father’s family arrived on these shores from the Portuguese diaspora, mostly the community of Cabo Verde in West Africa.

Both family lines show up in the dishes she cooks. “Our recipes are like a map of our history,” she writes.

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Some of the material in the beginning of the book is a bit stiff. Angela Marcellino isn’t always a clear writer. She is best when she is most personal. She is passionate about her feeling for community. She depicts a childhood (and even an adulthood) surrounded by MashpeeWampanoag friends and relatives.

That sense of community is expressed in a tradition of hospitality. Her family members and connections have visited each other frequently and lived in proximity when they could.

She notes that for a while when she was a child, her parents moved her immediate family to Hawaii. They were soon joined by other relatives to create a compound of sorts.

Community is paramount in the dishes Marcellino learned to prepare as a child and an adult.

When the book gets into the nitty-gritty of cooking, it really starts to soar. Along with her recipes for seafood, game, and vegetables, Marcellino shares vivid memories of her mother’s and grandmothers’ kitchens and of tribal gatherings.

She also provides tips for purchasing the best fish and shellfish. Her family has always preferred to do this straight from fishermen for maximum freshness, but she realizes that her readers may not all have this opportunity.

I probably won’t be able to make some of the dishes she describes. For example, she goes into fascinating detail about her uncle’s method of preparing baked eel. Unfortunately, we here in western Massachusetts are unlikely to find eel to bake. Marcellino notes that it is disappearing even from her coastal home.

Nevertheless, many of the recipes are for foods we can find in local stores, even if some of them, like the seafood, must travel to us.

A few of the recipes take a fair amount of work. No one expects a clambake to be a snap, for example. Nevertheless, most of them look straightforward and easy. I look forward to trying them.

I may start with the relatively simple formula below for succotash. I always adore a vegetable medley in the fall

Saturday’s event at Great Falls Discovery Center is co-sponsored by the Nolumbeka Project, River Valley Coop, and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Marcellino will speak about her passion for her heritage and her cooking. She will also sign copies of her cookbook for anyone who wants to purchase it. Refreshments will be served.

Succotash

(reprinted with permission from “The True Natives of Cape Cod Massachusetts and Their Food Ways”)

Ingredients:

4 to 5 strips bacon

2 tablespoon olive oil or any light oil such as canola

2 cups chopped fresh yellow or zucchini squash

3 cups frozen white corn

2 cups lima beans or red beans; frozen is fine

2 tablespoons thyme

1 tablespoon mint or hyssop

salt and pepper to taste (Marcellino, following her mother, recommends being generous with the pepper.)

Instructions:

Cook the bacon in a large, nonstick pan. Leave the bacon drippings in the pan. Remove the bacon, chop it into small pieces, and set it aside.

Add the oil, and sauté the squash just until it is tender. Do not overcook it, or it will lose its bright color.

Stir the remaining ingredients, plus the reserved bacon, into the pan. Heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with cornbread.

Marcellino doesn’t say how many people the recipe serves, but I would guess 6.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com