"Recipes from Turtle Island" - Learn and celebrate Native foods with Indigenous Chefs
13 October 2020, Washington D.C. – On 11 October, ahead of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day and World Food Day – Slow Food Turtle Island Association, Slow Food USA and FAO North America launched Recipes from Turtle Island, a collection of 14 diverse and nutritious recipes from seven Indigenous chefs from across North America.
Recipes from Turtle Island features renowned Indigenous chefs Sean Sherman (Oglala Lakota), Vincent Medina (Muwekma Ohlone) and Louis Trevino (Rumsen Ohlone), Elena Terry (Ho-Chunk), Crystal Wahpepah (Kickapoo), Loretta Oden (Potawatomi), Brian Yazzie (Diné), as well as Nephi Craig (White Mountain Apache and Diné), who is also featured in the recently released documentary film Gather.
Through their work, these chefs - who are part of the Slow Food Turtle Island Association - exemplify the collaborative revitalization Indigenous peoples are leading in food systems across North America, also referred to as Turtle Island by indigenous peoples. Collectively, they are inviting native and non-native people to learn and respectfully engage with these diverse, regional and healthy cuisines.
The compilation of recipes and ingredients in the cookbook are regional, seasonal, nutritious and reflective of the vast edible-plant diversity across North America. Foods such as milkweed pods, huckleberries, sunflower heads, chokecherries, amaranth, and corn offer opportunities to learn about and taste foods that are native to ecosystems across the region.
In celebration of the cookbook launch, Slow Food USA hosted a live session today with four of the seven contributing Indigenous chefs – Crystal Wahpepah, Nephi Craig, Elena Terry, and Sean Sherman. Giselle Kennedy Lord, Communications Director at Slow Food USA, moderated the discussion that highlighted the inspirations behind the recipes and the significance of the featured Native cuisine and ingredients.
“This is an important time for Indigenous peoples in North America. We are in this era of reclamation. We as educated Indigenous peoples who can work together and see a better path forward by bringing back the health and nutrition of our ancestors into our communities,” said Chef Sean Sherman, Executive Chef and Co-founder of The Sioux Chef and the non-profit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
This “era of reclamation” comes after two centuries of intense, traumatic history for Indigenous Peoples of North America through the 1800s and 1900s that significantly reduced and fractured Indigenous peoples’ communities and foodways. Chef Sherman explained that it has taken time to get to this point, “we as Indigenous communities can be highly educated, we can relearn a lot of the knowledge of our ancestors…picking up the Indigenous education that was meant for us a little over 100 years ago.”
Chef Nephi Craig, Nutritional Recovery Program Coordinator and Executive Chef at the Rainbow Treatment Center, and Café Gozhóó on White Mountain Apache land in Arizona, shared that “Native foods have been my greatest education. It is a journey that continues to lead and guide in a principled way echoing the ancestral voices of foodways and science that are integrated into the foods themselves. We are able to weave a very powerful and authentic narrative of our Indigenous identity and history.”
These recipes and ingredients have layers of significance. “With my recipes, there is always a story behind it, not just the human story but also the four-legged nations [the animals] stories and a healing story,” shared Chef Cyrstal Wapepah’s, Founder and Executive Chef of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, California.
“These ingredients come once a year. It’s a treat. The huckleberries, the milkweed… those kinds of ingredients are not just readily available to buy at the grocery store,” explained Chef Elena Terry, Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Wild Bearies, and Food & Culinary Coordinator for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance. “You savor those flavors more and appreciate it a little more because that food has to be hand-harvested. There is intention when you are getting that food. It’s not done for excess; it is done for a purpose.”
Chef Sean Sherman explained his approach to this recipe book: “We are not necessarily trying to create recipes from the past but trying to understand as much knowledge from our ancestors as possible and apply that knowledge into the recipe design. Simply, it is making food taste like where you are.”
As put by Chef Nephi Craig, they encouraged young Indigenous chefs to “have a sense of courageous humility moving forward.” The chefs emphasized that it’s not just about one individual, it is about working together collectively to clear a better path for the younger and future generations.
We all have a role to play. “Non-Indigenous people can take a better understanding of how we can build towards a better future if we adopt more indigenous practices into our food systems and have a better and deeper connection with our environment. As Indigenous people we work hard to protect our resources because we want to protect those resources for our future and our future generations,” Chef Sean Sherman shared in closing.
In closing, Senior Liaison Officer Thomas Pesek thanked all the Chefs for sharing their expertise, and Slow Food Turtle Island Association and Slow Food USA for the timely conversation and important collaboration, which made this World Food Day project possible. “Listening to your stories and those behind the recipes and significance of the foods has really bought this book to life for me,” said Pesek. “Collectively you’ve all bought forth a tremendous gift for North America and for the world at large to engage with and learn from as we honor Indigenous People Day and celebrate World Food Day globally, this is a timely and appropriate contribution.”
These recipes serve as avenues for bigger conversations. The session showed how these Indigenous chefs look ahead for the health and well-being of younger and future generations, along with the need for climate change adaptations and ecological restoration. They see Indigenous leadership, knowledge and foodways to be central in guiding paths forward. The recipe booklet provides an opportunity to expand understandings of the diversity and seasonality of native foods of North America. With Indigenous chefs and leaders across the region, we invite you to learn about and try out Recipes from Turtle Island.
Useful Links
Slow Foods USA: Recipes from Turtle Island
Recording of Slow Foods Live Session – October 13th
Food and Culinary Program Coordinator for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
Intertribal Agriculture Council and the American Indian Foods program
The Indigenous Food Lab – Native American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS)
University of Wisconsin in Madison in the Horticulture Department