Alternate headline: “Fake Indian in real trouble.”

I don’t know, guys. I’m grudgingly coming around to the idea that maybe it’d be better if she won in November. We can’t afford to lose her; she’s a daily one-woman content goldmine for the blogosphere, every bit the equal of Martha Coakley. A blogger has to eat, and she’s serving up an awful lot of pow wow traffic chow.

But apparently it’s based on someone else’s recipe:

Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.

The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.

Mrs. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Cold Omelets with Crab Meat contains all four of the ingredients listed in Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe in the exact same portion but lists five additional ingredients. More significantly, her instructions are virtually a word for word copy of Mr. Franey’s instructions from this 1979 article.

Among the ingredients for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing: “Imported mustard,” Worcestershire sauce, cognac, and of course crab, all presumably readily available to a, er, 19th-century agrarian Cherokee settlement in Oklahoma. No wonder Scott Brown’s campaign is now fundraising off of this clusterfark. Two videos for you here, one a heartrending Ken Burns-ian look at the tribulations of a 0/32 Native American via Mary Katharine Ham, the other a Fox News interview with Cherokee generalogist and Warren skeptic Twila Barnes. Enjoy.

Update: Can’t get the Barnes video to embed for some reason. You can watch it here.