Native American concepts go back to the future
Indigenous foods tap into current healthful dining trends
March 2, 2017
Long before the words “gluten-free,” “dairy-free,” “sustainable,” or “organic” were introduced into our vocabulary, Native Americans were living a sustainable, farm-to-table existence.
Now a growing number of Native American restaurant concepts are introducing consumers to America’s ancestral ingredients in a way that couldn’t be more on trend.
Among them are the fast-casual Tocabe and Werowocomoco Restaurant; the full-service Pueblo Harvest Café; Red Mesa Cuisine; Mitsitam Native Foods Café; and The Sioux Chef catering and Tatanka food truck.
Boris Revilla, food and beverage director at Pueblo Harvest Café in Albuquerque, N.M., believes it was only a matter of time before people became interested in Native foods.
Photo: Pueblo Harvest Café
“There’s been a huge farm-to-table movement in recent years, and everyone is more health-conscious,” he said. “It’s natural that they’d be interested in the original foragers and farmers of this land — Native people.”
Sean Sherman, CEO and founder of Minneapolis-based catering company The Sioux Chef and Tatanka food truck, agreed, saying the emergence of Native cuisine fits with today’s conversation about more healthful eating.
“People really understand about local foods and it just so happens that the food we’re serving is also extremely healthy,” he said. “It’s a great diet because it is super low-glycemic, high-protein, good fats, lots of vegetables, and hyper-local.”
The New Native
Lois Ellen Frank, chef and owner of Red Mesa Cuisine in Santa Fe, N.M., said Native American cuisine evolved over the years, but the current iteration marks a return to more healthful origins.
“I base things on four historic periods,” said Frank. “The Pre-Contact Period, which are foods that existed before contact with Europeans, such as what I call the Magic eight — corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla and cacao. None of those ingredients existed anywhere outside the Americas in 1491.”
The second period is the First Contact Period, according to Frank, the timing of which varies across North America with the arrival of various settlers.
“With them, the Europeans brought ingredients,” said Frank. “They originally brought domesticated animals, by-products from those animals, wheat, wine, and stone-fruit cuttings , and then citrus, olives, figs, etc., came later.”
Photo: Werowocomoco
The Third Period is the Government-Issue Period, she said. It was during this time that the government issued foods after forced relocation.
“The government issued lard, flour, sugar, coffee, and canned meats, including Spam, which got incorporated into the diet,” she said.