the forgotten cuisine

7/30/2019 The Forgotten Cuisine

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The Forgotten CuisineNephi Craig graduated from culinary school in 2000 and began a promising career. In

a few years, he was working his way up the stations at Mary Elaines, Arizonas only

five-star French restaurant, led by James Beard Awardwinning chef Bradford

Thompson. I was getting a great French, classical training, but something was

missing, says Craig, who is 33. The French tradition isnt my tradition, and I wanted

to cook in the tradition of my people: Apaches and Navajos.

Its an earlyTuesday morning in late July, and Craig is driving his 10-year-old son, Ari,

and me around the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, which is nestled in the White

Mountains of eastern Arizona. Craig, whose mother is Apache and whose late father

was Navajo, likes punk rock and skateboarding and is quick to laugh. Though he was

born in Whiteriver (the reservations largest community) and spent most of his youth

therehe also lived for several years on a Navajo reservationhe never thought hed

spend his adulthood here. He went to culinary school in Scottsdale and then spent

three years cooking at an affluent country club in the northern part of the city before

joining Mary Elaines.


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Bill Hess

Craig in the kitchen at the Sunrise Park Resort. The French tradition isnt my tradition, he says,

and I wanted to cook in the tradition of my people: Apaches and Navajos.

At Mary Elaines, wed use a lot of local ingredientsrabbit, venison, squash, and

cornthat I recognized as part of indigenous culinary history but were prepared in

the French style, he says. And as I got better as a chef, I began to think about using

my skills to showcase my own peoples culinary ways.

But he had a lot of learning to do. Even growing up on the reservation, I got the

same two-page social-studies version of our indigenous history, he says. You know,

the pilgrims and stuff. After leaving Mary Elaines, he began to devote himself to

rediscovering indigenous food. He traveled widely, hosting private dinners and

conferences, and seeking out other Native American chefs as well as academics who

had researched the cuisine of his ancestors. And when, in 2009, he learned of an

opening at the White Mountain Apache Tribes Sunrise Park Resort, it was, he says,

the right time to bring my ideas back home.

Craig was eventually appointed executive chef at the resort. His restaurant serves

mostly standard American fare. But guests can also book seats at his chefs tableand

its there, as well as through a group he founded called the Native American Culinary

Association, that Craig is acting on his dream: to restore and reinvent the largely

forgotten cuisine of his forebearers.

A SEARCH on the Zagat website for New York City lists 554 Italian restaurants, 191

French establishments, and 179 Japanese restaurants. There are 10 Ethiopian


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restaurants. But there isnt a single Native American restaurant listed. Theres no

culinary nod to the Lenape Indians who inhabited Manhattan long before Daniel

Boulud and Mario Batali.

American dining is based on our immigrant population, not our Native population,

says Lois Ellen Frank, a halfKiowa Indian chef-scholar who wrote Foods of the

Southwest Indian Nations. Ask an American today for his or her conception of Native

American cuisine, and youll likely be met with some mumbling about Thanksgiving.

Before the Colonial era, Apaches relied for food on a triptych of hunting, gathering,

and raiding, explained Thomas Mails inThe People Called Apache. Mails was writing

specifically about the Mescalero Apaches of New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, but the

same can be said of White Mountain Apaches. Acorns, seeds, and nuts were staple

foods in their largely plant-based diet, which also included rabbits, birds, raccoons,

fish, and other native animals. Food was local. If you lived in the Pacific Northwest,

you would know the six types of salmon and know how to harvest them, but if you

were a Navajo Indian on the Midwestern plains, you never would have seen one,

Frank says. Early European contact and trade introduced new foods, which many

Native American chefs today also consider part of their peoples authentic culinary

tradition. Its fair to talk about Navajo sheep even though sheep were imported to

the Americas, just as we now consider the tomato to be an authentic and

indispensable part of Italian cuisine even though it came from Mexico, Frank says.Bill Hess

Craig traveled widely, hosting private dinners and conferences, and seeking out other Native

American chefs as well as academics who had researched the cuisine of his ancestors.


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Then there is the food that arose from what Frank calls the third phase of Native

American culinary historythe reservation experience. Deprived of most of their

lands, Native Americans became dependent on federal rations, which often took the

form of lard, flour, and processed sugar. With these, they made fry bread, which has

become the food most associated with American Indian cuisine. Depending on how

much sugar is added, it can taste like a slightly richer version of Indian (not Native

American) paratha or something almost as decadent as state-fair elephant ears.

Fry bread, which is not good for you, to say the least, has contributed to a widespread

health crisis among Native Americans. About 33 percent of American Indians and

Alaskan Natives are obese, and more than 16 percent suffer from type 2 diabetes

rates far higher than are found in the general population. Ojibwa Indian musician

Keith Secola, who penned an ironic ode to the dish, has said, admittedly with some

hyperbole, that fry bread has killed more Indians than the federal government.

But what does all this history add up to today? In other words, just what isNative

American cooking? When I pose the question to Loretta Barrett Odenwho opened

the Corn Dance Caf in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1993 and is considered a pioneer

of new Native American cuisineshe repeats it back to me: Thats the question,

isnt it? Just what the hell is Native American food?

To me, Odencontinues, its working with indigenous foods of the Americas,

precontact. My food is straightforward. At the Corn Dance Caf, we served wood-

grilled bison tenderloin with sage au jus. A lot of indigenous foods over wood fires.


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Oden doesnt cook fry bread. I dont consider that Native American at all, she says.

But the food doesnt have to be simple to be authentic, she adds. Nephi comes from

a French culinary background, and like him Ill do reductions and sauces. Coming

from the Native tradition, we have the ingredients to do haute cuisine.


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Bill Hess

Ask an American today for his or her conception of Native American cuisine, and youll likely be

met with some mumbling about Thanksgiving.

The Corn Dance Caf closed in 2003, but Oden continued to evangelize, including in

an Emmy Awardwinning television series, Seasoned With Spirit, which aired on PBS in

2006. Currently shes consulting with the Wilton Rancheria Indians about opening a

Native American restaurant as part of their proposed casino project in Sacramento

County, California.

CRAIG TURNS off the main road connecting the community of Cibecue (famous

for an 1881 Apache revolt) to Whiteriver and parks beside a two-acre garden known

as the Peoples Farm. The garden has been operating for several years with federal

grants, tribal funds, and contributions from the Johns Hopkins Center for American

Indian Health, which has a small office next to the Whiteriver Indian Health Service

Hospital, where Craig was born. The farm employs four full-time tribal staff

members, selling its crops on site and at a nearby weekly farmers market.

Craig is preparing for a tasting dinner hes hosting tomorrow night for six people.

Such dinners are uncommon in the summer off-season, when Craig operates with a

skeleton crew, but he hosts these indigenous-cuisine showcases up to four nights a

week during the busy ski season.

He wanders through the rows, picking out squash blossoms. Weeks earlier, he had

taken rocks from the nearby riverbed to use as platesIll return them at the end of

the season, he says. On the following morning, Wednesday, the day of the tasting

meal, I join Craig, his son, and two Apache assistants, Juwon Hendricks and Randal


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Cosen, and forage for edible plants among the aspen and pine trees surrounding the

resort. We pick meadow rue, which has a delicate peppery taste; oxalis weed, which

tastes like green apple; penny-bun mushrooms; and various wildflowers for plating.


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Bill Hess

About 80 percent of the patrons who attend Craigs tasting dinners are Native American.

About 80 percent of the patrons who attend Craigs tasting dinners are Native

American, he says. Wednesday nights group of six will include both Natives and non-

Natives. Its a company gatheringboard members of a local Christian in-home

caregiving service are celebrating a recent milestone. The cost of the tasting is $89 per

person.

Prior to the groups arrival, Craig and his assistants clear a portion of the kitchen for a

round dining table. On a nearby counter, he places various books celebrating Native

American cuisine and history. There are also cookbooks from his travels to Germany,

Brazil, and Japan, all places where hes hosted dinners to showcase Native American

cuisine. (Craig has also prepared a Native-themed menu at the James Beard House in

New York City.) A banner over the dish-washing station reads: Apaches Do It

Better. I stand alongside Craig and his three assistants as they prepare and serve the

meal, and they give me small servings of each course.

The 12-course meal begins with a spartan offering of traditional trail mix: toasted

kernels of three native corn varietals. This is followed by a shot glass of cold melon

soup, enlivened with the oxalis; a quinoa salad; and cornmeal-fried squash blossoms

stuffed with bean paste. Many of the courses employ the three sisters of Native

American cuisine: corn, beans, and squash. These crops, which have special, mythic

meaning for Native Americans, are traditionally grown together, and they help each

other grownot like with the mono-crops we see now, says Allison Barlow,


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associate director of the Center for American Indian Health. (Native Americans

historically used companion planting, meaning that the three crops were planted in

close proximity; as the corn grew, the beans climbed up, so the farmers didnt need

poles, and as the squash spread along the ground, it blocked sunlight from potential

weeds.)

Craig prepares each of the heavier courses two ways. Seared salmonits not local,

but a nod to our indigenous brothers and sisters in the Pacific Northwest, Craig tells

the guestsis served on the riverbed slates alongside rock moss and charred pine

needles. It accompanies balls of thinly sliced salmon stuffed with wild mushrooms

cooked sous vide. There is also seared duck breasts (coated with lemon- and honey-

infused tea) served alongside duck confit, as well as paprika-coated rabbit loins and a

rabbit rack of ribs with Craigs Nana sauce, a parsley concoction named for a famous

Apache warrior who fought federal troops well into old age. And there is bison

tenderloin, served alongside chunks of rich, roasted bone marrow, as well as venison

served in one version atop a parsnip pure and in another with wild rice.

For dessert, Craig serves Western Apache profiteroles, his salute to fry bread, with

melted chocolate and pine nutinfused whipped cream. They are as delicious as they

are decadent. I recognize that fry bread is controversial, says Craig, but now its

undeniably part of our heritage, so Ill use it in moderation.

LAST NOVEMBERCraig hosted the Native American Culinary Associations

Indigenous Food Culture Conference over five days at the Sunrise Park Resort. Chefs


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from Utahs Black Sheep Cafe, New Mexicos Waterbird Catering, and a few other

Native American establishments performed cooking demonstrations in Whiteriver

and joined anthropologists for public discussions on Native culinary history. Craigs

work at the resort is localized, says Lois Ellen Frank, who presented at the

conference. But hes providing a model for other Native communities, and hes one

of several Native chefs thats helping advance the recognition of Native American

cuisine nationally.


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Bill Hess

Many of the courses employ the three sisters of Native American cuisine: corn, beans, and squash.

Next month Craig will have his biggest showcase yet: hes one of several Native

American chefs (including Frank) who have been invited by the Chefs Gardena

Huron, Ohio, farming company that grows produce used by many of the countrys

top restaurantsto cook for more than 100 visiting chefs at a conference. Im

hoping not just to present my version of Native American cuisine but to demonstrate

to all these other chefs, who specialize in many different traditions, the indigenous

roots of all types of cooking in the Americas, no matter what the cuisine, he says.

To be sure, Craigs high-end cooking isnt going to address the health crisis among

average Native Americans. According to the 2010 census, more than half of the

13,409 people on the Fort Apache reservation live below the poverty line. And the

impoverishment extends to the land, once rich with fields of alfalfa and other crops

but now largelyfallow. In Cibecue, theres a lone convenience store whose mostly

barren shelves stock Pringles and a few other packaged snacks but no fresh fruit or

vegetables.

This area, which used to be rich with food, is now a food desert, Craig says. He is

trying to tackle this problem, too. Earlier this year, he co-founded a nonprofit

dedicated to revitalizing agriculture and water use among Western Apaches. The

organization has since built a garden in McNary, a small community on the

reservation. It has also hosted cooking workshops at the Sunrise Park Resort and

begun a program to deliver Native American packaged meals to the Apache elderly.


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Craig says he thinks these initiatives are compatible with his high-cuisine aspirations.

The ideas are linked by a common goal: to reintroduce indigenous cuisine to both

Native Americans and the outside world. In culinary school almost 15 years ago, Craig

says he was force-fed the notion that there were only three mother cuisines: French,

Italian, and Asian. There are, of course, no shortage of groupsMiddle Easterners,

Africans, otherswho might take issue with such reductionism. But Craig points out

that each of the so-called mother cuisines was revitalized by contact with the foods of

indigenous Americans. He points to the role of the tomato in modern Italian cooking.

And chilies changed all of the cooking of Asia forever, he adds. Despite this,

modern Native American cuisine has yet to attain the three-star Michelin renown or

even general awareness thats associated with ravioli or coq au vin. Craig hopes that

will change. My stance today, he says, is that Native American cuisine is the fourth

mother cuisine and needs to be included in that list.

the forgotten cuisine

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