Why aren’t we talking about indigenous food? - mexican dishes in restaurants

Why don't we talk about Aboriginal food? The answer to this question will vary from person to person you ask.
"Well, you mean pre-colonial, post-
Colony, American Indian, Native American, or today"
Karlos Baca (Tewa/Din é/Nuche), an Aboriginal food activist ).
Spanish, Mexican or Protestant
David Rico, a colony of the joketo nation, has a chef in José Andres's American eat Tavern, who further presses, "even what is the technical ingredient of Aboriginal cooking, just use whatever it gives you or you can use nonpre-
The colonial ingredients and whether or not you are responsible for removing invasive species all depend on your concept of [Aboriginal] identity.
"Because the elders of Rico are forcibly driven out of their land again and again, there is no lasting memory, lesson, and no relationship with a family or place to pass on.
"It feels like we just woke up and looked around and asked: What just happened, even ours, what imposed on us," Sean Sherman, in the Oglala Lakota Country and the author of the book "indigenous kitchen of the sous chef", his answer is more concise.
"Look at history," he told me with a cold smile.
"This is a sign of permanent oppression.
While the three have different opinions on many things, they agree with several points: The first is the tendency to the word "Aboriginal", not the word "North America, and the more outdated "Native American" and "Native American ".
"This is a debate in the fierce debate in India," Rico explained . ".
"How we are is very important.
Recognition, the younger generation begins to correct the older generation in terms of [more violations], but you can't really tell others how to identify yourself.
"Second, to fully understand the current state of contemporary Aboriginal cuisine, it is necessary to understand the history of indigenous oppression, displacement and deprivation.
"If you can control your food, you can control your fate," Sherman said . ".
"This is the definition of food sovereignty.
"Forcibly transferred to some of the most ruthless food --
Growing territory
As the United States continues to expand, indigenous people have to build new homes in the country's arid rural areas.
Their ecosystem was destroyed and their land was stolen.
They rely heavily on the United States because of their remote location. S.
Government projects and food aid.
The resulting diet, in which the staple food is a mixture of commodity biscuits and canned apple sauce, is fresh with the hunting game --
Caught fish and wild food from their ancestors.
In the process, countless indigenous hunting, fishing, cooking techniques and spiritual practices have been lost.
"I 've been a chef for decades and can say hundreds of dishes with Italian and French dishes," Sherman admits . ".
"But I don't know what the food in LaCota is or what it is.
"How do you start to restore a culinary culture that has been buried for a long time and has no access to the current differences in the literature on the subject, and the desire to enhance the civil rights of other indigenous peoples, is the reason why Sherman wrote chef Su.
"In tracking the dishes and techniques of LaCota, he turned to the elders of the family and the ethnic group of the region --Plant text. Puerto Rico, who's not-too-
The distant ancestors walked on the trail of tears, relying on his strong personal connection with the world around him.
"This land is still a lesson for us," he believes . ".
By observing and tasting what was provided by the surroundings around him, Rico's "ancestral memory" revived in him.
"This is not the knowledge we had long ago," he explained . ".
"The good thing is that this is not all on my shoulders;
Many of us deliberately retreat and move forward in history to lay the foundation for the next fire --
The breeder of the next seedgatherers.
Who knows what they will find, "Baca, who lives on the food he planted in the Colorado mountains, we think, the only way to colonize our food system is to exist completely out of it.
"The more I come into contact with the land I am in, the farther I am away from Western ideology," he told me . ".
"I no longer use the word 'chef;
This is not part of my ideal.
For him, everything he needs to eat
Kitchen, pantry or grocery store-
Outside, it is sometimes unpredictable.
"I don't know what will happen, what will happen, or what nature is doing. ”His hyper-
Local practices and definitions of local cuisine may be the most stringent of the three.
"I only use food from where I come from," he said . ".
Looking forward to the sustainable and healthy contemporary Aboriginal cuisine of tradition and history, Baca struggles with the practices he will continue and abandon.
First of all, he's re-working with others.
Localize the already clear forests around
The supplies are cut off by neon and du Songsen.
"But," said Baca, "Grandma will give me bread and let me take it away when I get home. And I take it;
I don't eat that kind of food, but I don't tell my grandma.
Cooking and consuming "indigenous foods" means being in a state of symbiosis with our communities and environment: producing enough food without causing damage to people and wildlife around us.
This approach is difficult to align within our current food system's preferences for Giant Foodsmono-
Planting and capitalist enterprises.
However, Sherman thinks the two goals are OK. exist.
His organization, NATIFS (on behalf of the "Native American traditional Aboriginal food system"), has just acquired a non-profit status of 501c3.
This year, he plans to open the first of many local food laboratories in Minneapolis;
It is hoped that these international food safety initiatives "strengthen local communities through indigenous food knowledge and access.
"Each place will provide an Aboriginal restaurant and educational program (courses on wild food, ethnobotany, preservation, history), as well as an active research and development project.
In addition, NATIFS wants to create, educate and train local tribal community food businesses that will consist of people who are trained in cooking at IFL.
Sherman hopes to develop and strengthen support for indigenous communities by creating a market for indigenous ingredients and methods and placing education and food in the minds and bellies of any one and everyone who is eager to know.
Others like Baca are less optimistic.
"It's almost impossible to keep serving local food for restaurants," he said . ".
"These systems are never big enough.
Because our own people were hungry, I left that ideology.
Our own people need this food.
We need to build from within by providing food, information and profit to our own people.
Living in Rico, Washington, D. C. C.
Seems to be in line.
"I am a chef because of all the benefits and deterrence of it, in a restaurant that explains" American food "in Spanish"colonial lens.
For me, it clarifies the difference between American food and native food.
They asked me for the "certified" recipe and I learned to refuse.
"There may never be a set of mother sauces or cooking techniques characterized by" contemporary Aboriginal cuisine.
"Even within the tribe, there are huge and intense issues of values and identity.
But there seems to be a bottom line: a general commitment to control one's own food and, in a very "American" way (though it may be complicated), finally creating one's own destiny