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Finding hope in Indigenous food

| 7 min read

By Helen Lammers-Helps

“I’m demystifying our food,” says Tawnya Brant, Indigenous chef. Photo: Supplied.

Almost half of Indigenous households living on reserve and a quarter of those living off reserve struggle with food insecurity, compared with about eight per cent for all households across Canada. 

The discovery earlier this year of the graves of 215 children buried at a former Indian residential school (and the thousands more that followed) has shocked Canadians and shone a spotlight on the lasting harm caused by the residential school system.

Among the enduring consequences has been the loss of traditional food knowledge — how to grow, gather, cook and preserve traditional foods. “Children were removed from their homes and communities … children did not eat traditional foods with their families,” explains Lynne Groulx, CEO of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) in Ottawa.

Two concepts are crucial. Food insecurity is defined as “inadequate or unstable access to nutritious food due to financial constraints.” Since the mid-1990s, another concept, called food sovereignty, has evolved to go beyond this to consider the cultural, political and environmental aspects of food systems.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of these food-based values for understanding Indigenous reconciliation.

“Food sovereignty is at the forefront of our minds right now, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic and rising food costs,” says Groulx. “Food sovereignty, the right to choose our own food, has been disturbed by colonization, loss of access to hunting and fishing in traditional territories, and the residential school system.”

But it can also be the way forward. According to the Indigenous Food Systems Network, “Indigenous food sovereignty provides a restorative framework for health and community development and reconciling past social and environmental injustices in an approach that people of all cultures can relate to.”

NWAC is piloting a greenhouse program that they hope will help their members across the country feed their families. A custom-designed greenhouse has been built on the roof of their office building in the heart of Ottawa. The construction was delayed by the pandemic but the project will be up and running this coming spring.

Traditional medicines and foods such as an heirloom squash with an 800-year history will be grown in the greenhouse. The heirloom seeds were obtained through a continent-wide Indigenous seed-sharing network.

In addition to the food grown, members will gain experience in greenhouse growing which will serve as a model for small greenhouses in communities across the country, says Groulx. A greenhouse may also be built on site at a healing lodge in New Brunswick to provide nutritious traditional foods for the residents.

Traditional cultural food is a key part of food sovereignty, says Dr. Adrianne Lickers Xavier, acting director of the Indigenous studies program at McMaster University in Hamilton. “If cultural food is missing, it affects us mentally, socially and physiologically. The laws that outlawed us from our culture … the disconnection from food was purposeful.”

In Indigenous communities, the connection to plants and animals is part of identity, explains Lickers Xavier. “It’s a reciprocal relationship. If we take care of them, they take care of us.”

She emphasizes the issue’s fundamental importance to reconciliation. “It’s not just to have enough to eat but also to be able to choose what we have enough of,” she says. “Then food security becomes food sovereignty.”

For seven years Lickers Xavier headed up Our Sustenance, a community education and food access program that was responsible for a local farmers market, community gardens, good-food box program, and other community programs at the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near Brantford, Ontario.

The Healthy Roots Program was initiated to promote traditional food consumption, and although the study sample size was small, the researchers reported that the participants had better-controlled blood glucose, positive weight change and increased traditional food knowledge.

Lickers Xavier says the study also showed the importance of eating and growing traditional foods. The participants reported feeling connected to their culture and the land through the food which made their bodies feel better.

“Food connects to all parts of our lives,” says Lickers Xavier. “We need to build relationships to food, land and each other. There is a need for relationship building and acknowledgement of the truth of our lives … the loss of life with the residential schools.”

Chef Tawnya Brant serves food that is both culturally relevant and healthy at her restaurant on the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve. She focuses on preparing healthy meals using local traditional and foraged Haudenosaunee ingredients.

The Mohawk chef says traditional food is often good for those with dietary restrictions because it tends to be gluten-free, dairy-free and low in cholesterol. Honey and maple syrup are used instead of sugar. She also turns to the Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — that were an important part of how earlier generations fed themselves. They also sustained themselves with foraged ingredients such as berries and nuts along with small amounts of game meats such as rabbit, turkey and venison, as well as fish.

“I’m demystifying our food,” says Brant, whose fusion menu include popular items such as bison stroganoff, turkey burrito bowls, and squash alfredo ravioli as well as vegan squash and corn soups. She honed her cooking skills and developed her popular recipes during two decades working as a chef and caterer.

The lineups and positive feedback at her Yawékon restaurant tell Brant she is doing something right.

But Brant recognizes that reviving Indigenous food culture can be complicated. She’s not a purist about using only local traditional foods. When it comes to post-European contact foods, she says, they’ve had those foods for 400 years and they have become woven into their foodways.

Brant defends her choice to create fusion foods. “Our culture and language are not dead. We are still making new words, why not new foods?”

She also doesn’t limit herself to only local Indigenous ingredients. Instead, Brant has made it her mission to revive North American Indigenous food culture.

Brant says those who haven’t tasted traditional foods need to retrain their palates. She hopes that eating the food she serves will inspire people to try cooking these foods at home and also to grow them. Much of the food knowledge has been lost, she says.

People must learn how to cook, not just the traditional foods, but other foods, as well, says Brant. Food sovereignty requires spreading the know-how to grow and prepare healthy foods. With high rates of diabetes and other ailments in Indigenous communities, Brant says there is no time to lose.

In the Haudenosaunee culture, the belief is that everyone has been given a gift to share with others. Brant says her gift is to cook for others and she finds this to be very fulfilling work. On the other hand, her mother, Terrylynn Brant, has been given the complementary gift of a green thumb.

The longtime gardener preserves heirloom Haudenosaunee seeds through the Mohawk Seedkeepers Garden. In addition to teaching others to grow the seeds, the senior Brant also teaches people how to cook and preserve the food they grow. With climate change, Brant says growing and saving seeds adapted to local conditions is a critical part of food sovereignty.

Dr. Priscilla Settee, professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan, is optimistic about progress towards Indigenous food sovereignty. She points to communities that have taken the reins and are drawing on traditional knowledge from elders. “It’s exciting and gratifying when we realize our common humanity and humanity’s capacity to turn things around. We have to keep building those bridges.” 

Resources

Visit ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ at gfmdigital.com for more farm views of Indigenous issues.