Indigenous chefs, activists are using food to talk about land, history and culture

Unreserved46:53Food for thought

When Quentin Glabus was growing up, there weren't a lot of Indigenous chefs to look up to.

"It kind of struck a chord like… I mean, there's all these other chefs out there that are known, but there is no real Indigenous chef," said Glabus, who is Cree and a member of Frog Lake First Nation, about 200 kilometres east of Edmonton.

Now he is an internationally recognized chef and has travelled the world representing Canadian and Indigenous cuisine. And after years of searching he has found his Indigenous culinary community in something called the I-Collective. 

The I-Collective is an international group of independent Indigenous chefs, activists, herbalists, seed and knowledge keepers, who are promoting Indigenous culinary practices and using food as a gateway to talk about land, history, culture and politics. 

M. Karlos Baca is Diné from Southern Ute, in Colorado, he is one of the founders of the I-Collective. "There's people who have their own businesses, there's people that work in diabetes programs…there's people mapping out entire food systems and what's left of that knowledge," Baca told Unreserved. "There's farmers and people that are re-Indigenizing entire landscapes that were affected by colonisation." 

Glabus said the group is "working to change the narrative [of] what everyone thinks of Indigenous culture, through food and food sovereignty."

If you take away a food source, you get control of the people- Quentin Glabus

Indigenous food sovereignty is described as a reconnection to land-based food and political systems.

Europeans brought food and agricultural practices that changed the environment and the way people eat in North America, including the introduction of beef, chicken, pork and dairy.

Indigenous peoples were cut off from food sources and relocated to reserves. 

"If you take away a food source, you get control of the people," said Glabus.

For centuries, buffalo were an essential part of the diet and way of life for Indigenous people in the prairies. In the 19th century, buffalo were nearly made extinct due to over hunting and loss of territory due to cattle ranching by white settlers. 

• Buffalo slaughter led to Indigenous people getting shorter through the years, economist says

And today there continues to be tension between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people over food ways, from fishing rights on the East Coast to wild rice seeding in Ontario's cottage country. 

No Thanksgiving dinner

From its inception, the I-Collective has used food to talk about politics, land and history. 

The group launched in 2017 with a series of dinners over American Thanksgiving in New York. The dinners were meant to bring awareness to the history of colonization in North America. 

"You have a captive audience that came for a seven-course meal, and instead you get a seven-course meal and a really hardcore conversation about borders and land theft and genocide," Baca said.

That first dinner was a meaningful experience for Glabus, he said "it felt like I was back home in the indigenous community, like I was back at my grandmother's when the family is all there."

The I-collective aims to promote Indigenous food and facilitate Indigenous food sovereignty in part with A Gathering Basket, a series of subscription-based multimedia cookbooks

The virtual cookbooks offer recipes using "pre-colonial" foods. 

A Gathering Basket is created by Indigenous people for Indigenous people. "Every story is from Indigenous people, every piece of artwork, every video, everything," said Baca.

An issue of A Gathering Basket costs $7 US and the money goes toward paying contributors. 

"All of that funding goes back to people [and] back into Indigenous communities who are sharing their voices and their stories," said Baca.

Instead of a roast beef recipe that might be found in Euro-Western cookbooks, A Gathering Basket features roast amik, beaver in Anishinaabemowin. 

WATCH | Get the recipe for roast beaver:

Baca says, the cookbook also includes "Pan-Indigenous foods" — different Indigenous foods from across Turtle Island. "People mix cholla buds from the Sonoran desert with wild rice from the Great Lakes, with the berry sauce from the plains."

In addition to recipes, A Gathering Basket contains a collection of cultural offerings including stories, essays and poetry. 

"We're doing our best to represent and showcase [Indigenous] stories and knowledge and teachings through this project of A Gathering Basket," said Glabus.

He said the project is especially important "because with the Indigenous culture, there really is no written documentation of the Indigenous culture, especially food." 

For Glabus, food has always been a way to connect to his Indigenous identity, "The best way to learn about my cultural background was through food."

Do you have a family recipe that's been passed down through generations? Do you have your own recipes that bring together traditional foods with a modern flare? Unreserved would love for you to share with us. Submit your recipes for an upcoming episode at unreserved@cbc.ca.