Organic reach: #FoodSovereignty moves to the web

#ColonialContact brought foreign food and disease to tribal nations. Now, a digital generation is reconnecting with tradition.

by Kim Baca April 18, 2018

Excerpt: "When Native Americans were forced to assimilate — confined to reservations and placed in Indian boarding schools — traditional food preparation waned, forgotten in a world of processed foods and modern cooking conveniences. But [#MariahGladstone], who shops at the grocery store, hunts or receives food from family and friends, wants to show how easy, affordable and tasty Indigenous cooking can be. Her recipe for salmon cornmeal cakes, which takes just five steps and five ingredients, appears in a how-to video on her 'Indigikitchen' (Indigenous kitchen) Facebook page, which has more than 1,400 followers.

" 'There is also a lot of interest from Native communities across the country to revitalize their Native foods, not only for the health benefit but for the connection to our ancestors and to recognize our identities as Native people,' she said.

"Some Indigenous chefs are incorporating traditional foods in anti-Thanksgiving pop-up dinners, cooking without any dairy, processed flour or sugar, all ingredients introduced after European contact. This excludes #frybread, often considered a traditional Native food enjoyed at powwows and other Indigenous events. Few realize that frybread was created by Navajos in 1864, during their forced removal, when they had little to eat other than U.S. government rations of white flour, sugar and lard.

"But 'pre-Contact' cooking is more than a foodie trend for people like 13-year-old Maizie White, an #AkwesasneMohawk seventh-grader who writes about Indigenous food and shares recipes on her blog, NativeHearth.com. Her recipes include avocado hominy salsa, spiced squash waffles, wild rice stuffed squash and venison roast and gravy.

" 'It helps #IndigenousFarmers and local people who are growing the food to make a living,' said White, who was invited by #SeanSherman, an #OglalaLakota also known as '#TheSiouxChef,' to cook at the renowned James Beard House in New York City. 'We’re giving back to our community and it is much more healthier and much more economical to cook. It also brings us back to what was here beforehand and respect what was already here.' "

Read more:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/50-7/tribal-affairs-organic-reach-food-sovereignty-moves-onto-the-web/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/E2FRq

#SolarPunkSunday #AnimalProducts #IndigenousFoodSecurity #IndigenousFoodSovereignty #IndigenousFoodSystems #LandBack #Reclaiming #Decolonize #TraditionalDiets #AntiThanksgiving #TraditionalFoods #IndigenousPeoplesMonth

Online cooking show, lifestyle blog encourage #Indigenous ingredients in everyday meals

Anna Ehrick
April 3, 2025

PHOENIX – "Since she was 3 years old, #MariahGladstone says, she has had a passion for food.

"After graduating from high school in northwest Montana, she studied environmental engineering at Columbia University in New York. During summers, she returned to her Blackfeet Nation home where she realized how disconnected Indigenous communities were from their traditional food systems.

" 'After I graduated college, I would take vacation days from my real world job to go to food sovereignty conferences,' said Gladstone, who is Blackfeet and Cherokee. 'At one of those conferences, I said, ‘Someone really needs to start a cooking show about Indigenous foods. I think I’m just going to do that.'

"Indigikitchen was born. The online cooking show is a combination of content on YouTube as well as recipes shared on its website. The foods contain Native ingredients like berries, corn, squash and wild rice.

"#FoodSovereignty is a concept coined in 1996 by La Via Campesina, a global movement of farmers that recognizes the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods.

"On her website, Gladstone emphasizes the importance of the recipes for Indigenous people.

" 'I want to connect people with information about sustainable harvesting methods, planting knowledge, sustainable hunting and, of course, the recipes and the food that are ways of using our #AncestralKnowledge in our modern lives,' she said.

"Gladstone spreads this knowledge by working with Native farmers and fishermen in the hopes that it not only restores their businesses, but the #LandManagement and #TraditionalEcologies.

"While based in #Montana, Indigikitchen has made its way across the country. Gladstone is a popular speaker with groups in the Southwest and the Great Lakes region who hire her for educational lectures, cooking classes and school residencies. Gladstone also has ties to Canada, where she has formed relationships with other nations in the #BlackfootConfederacy.

"These connections have motivated Gladstone to continue her work with #Indigikitchen, and she said she’s grateful to use a tool like social media in order to reach the right audiences.

" 'Indian Country is small and Facebook is a digital telegraph, so it has a way of reaching a lot of communities very quickly where everyone shares my recipes and utilizes them,' she said. 'The more people I see using those recipes, the bigger difference it makes to support Native producers as well as healthy nutrition in our communities.'

"Among the recipes on her website are Three Sisters Soup, which uses corn, beans and squash; pemmican, a mixture of dry buffalo meat, dried cranberries and blueberries and grass-fed beef tallow; sunflower maple cookies; and mesquite blue cornbread.

"Connecting Indigenous people with the food they ate before European foods were introduced into their diets is a movement gaining popularity. According to the National Indian Council on Aging, Native foods included seeds, nuts, #corn, #beans, chile, #squash, wild fruits and greens, herbs, fish and game.

"People like Gladstone call these '#PreContact foods,' and they emphasize the importance for #IndigenousPeople to celebrate their food culture and improve their health by returning to a more traditional diet.

"That is especially important for the Navajo Nation, which the USDA classifies as a 'food desert.' There are only 14 grocery stores for a land mass of 29,000 square miles, forcing people to travel a long way to buy nutritious foods.

"Another Native food and lifestyle blogger who promotes #Diné, or #Navajo, recipes is #AlanaYazzie. On her website, thefancynavajo.com, she posts recipes for blue corn waffles, sumac berry smoothies and blue corn oatmeal from her cookbook, 'The Modern Navajo Kitchen.' "

Read more:
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2025/04/03/indigikitchen-founder-navajo-blog-connects-with-native-communities/

#IndigenousFood #NativeAmericanFood
#CookingShows #IndigiKitchen #Decolonize #TraditionalFoods #TraditionalDiets