Many of us are actively decolonizing our diets in our own ways, each at our own pace to varying degrees of success—often running into problems with ingredient accessibility as most of us are no longer oriented to gathering or living in an area where it’s appropriate or accessible to gather traditional foods. But every season is a new opportunity to share knowledge and to offer a light in the dark for those that are in every stage of connection or reconnection with their traditional ways; a chance to introduce each other to our plant relatives, to begin forming or to keep nurturing a relationship with our cultural biomes, and to support each other in our journeys.

The most important thing to know is that you don’t have to become “Rachel Ray for Rezzers” right off the bat (I gleaned that little goodie from Mariah Gladstone of Indigikitchen and I keep it close to my heart.) You can start with one thing at a time, one step at a time, one story at a time, one visit back home at a time. It’s ok to start with one ingredient and learn about it, how it came to be a part of your culture, to just appreciate how it sustained your ancestors. Then you can incorporate that ingredient with the intention of feeling closer to your ancestors and maybe lowering your cholesterol. There are no rules if your intention is connection, being in control of your health, and to increase your food security. Food is ceremony, ceremony is sacred, but sacred foods are not just for ceremony.

Meagen Baldy and her daughter Emily, the only girl in a family with 6 children are Hupa, living in the Hoopa Valley. As I was sitting up watching the Native Nutrition Conference videos one night, I could feel Emily’s passion about her cultural foods during the Youth Perspectives Panel and called them both up to hear how they’re incorporating traditional foods into their lives. Hearing our young people speak passionately and with deep, abiding concern for the health of their families, elders, aunties, and themselves is powerful. Meagen notes that, “If they [her children] don’t love Hoopa, love their environment the way that we love it then they aren’t going to be the ones that protect it when we’re gone. We’re setting ourselves up for our failure if we don’t nurture that.”

After spending 10 summer days in Arkansas at the Native Food and Agriculture summit at the University of Arkansas, learning how to help her community with food sovereignty, Electa Redcorn and Cindy Farley invited Emily to the youth panel at the Native Nutrition Conference in Minnesota.

Meagen & Emily in their backyard in Hoopa where they are also raising acorn-fed heritage pork.

There has never been a time in Emily’s life where she hasn’t been immersed in seasonal subsistence gathering. “I always grew up gathering, once my mom got a job at KTRCD (Klamath Trinity Resource Conservation District) we got into gardening and gathering foods and eating healthier. It was fun to go up the hill and gather and go fishing. We all help each other, making jams and jellies, we can our fish, freeze our deer meat—stock up for the winter. We even can mushrooms and tan oak acorns.” I asked her what her favorite dish is and without hesitation she said, “deer meat, mashed potatoes, and gravy.”

Meagen has been working for KTRCD for 7 years, coming on as an intern. As she began to learn what the program was all about she also began to wonder how she could best serve her community. She immersed herself in policy, started working with CSA programs and got into local foods. At first Meagen admits that back then, when handed a bundle of kale, she was mystified about how to use it, “but the farmers were really nice people that gave us free food, so I felt I really had to figure out how to use these vegetables.” She said she tried kale chips and was less than impressed with them. Then she started throwing kale into tacos, spaghetti, soup, smoothies, anything she could get her family to eat. She learned that kale had iron, calcium, and protein and she wondered how she could get her community to start eating it. She said, “I know, It would really taste good with salmon! I know people won’t let salmon go to waste,” she knew they’d eat it even if there was kale in the salmon and incorporated it into a recipe for salmon patties.

Even as Meagen was learning more about the available local produce, she noticed that people weren’t picking up the CSA shares purchased for them by the Tribal TANF department. She realized they probably just didn’t know what to do with kale or kohlrabi, daikon or rutabaga, “they’re probably like me and didn’t know what the heck to ever do with kale.” So Meagen started doing cooking classes teaching people how to use all the local produce combined with traditional foods and even commodities. And realizing that she could reach even more members of her community she turned to YouTube—people could watch her classes from home which is how the cooking channel came about.

“From working with that program I’ve gained a greater understanding of food security in my own home. Are we food secure? Do we have enough food to last? If the road slides out on both ends, if the lights go out, what are we going to do for 5 days? We realized we needed to grow a diversity of produce and learn how to use these things in our diet. And then we started raising more animals, and we realized that the resiliency that we’ve always had was through food sovereignty. “It’s how we actually survived as Hupa people, we went up into the hills and hid, we waited them [the National Guard] out. The military put bags of flour out to entice the Hupa out of the hills but they just dumped the flour out and used the bags to leech acorns. We’re gonna do what Native people have done since the beginning of time and the way we’re gonna do that is through food sovereignty,” when things get tough, Native people will go to the proverbial hills.

She also points out an interesting disconnection. During the 100 Year Flood of ’64, when the National Guard brought food to the Native people that were there farming and ranching in the valley, the emergency food wasn’t necessary. They had larders and pantries full of food, they were secure—she asks, “How is it, with all of this technology today that we were more food secure during the worst flood in a hundred years than we are right now.”

Meagen and I both believe that one of the best ways to connect, if you’re unable to ask your elders, is to choose just one food and learn about it. For example, acorns. What are the kinds of acorns that your tribe gathered? Why do we leech them? Once you leech it what do we do from there? Soup, flour? Try it out one step at a time. Find out how to use it, and find out how to love it. Our traditional foods are not only for ceremony, it’s a staple. Meagen reminds us that, “It was a daily staple, not just for dances.” Acorns were an everyday food. The gathering, the processing, the pounding, the leeching, the drying, boiling, preserving, it was every day. And if you’re using an everyday food like acorns, reflecting on how important and vital it was to your culture while you’re cooking is going to nourish you in more ways than one. Listen to Meagen, “You’re never going to be fully immersed until you take that one step. We’re not born knowing everything, everything is a learning process.”

She also reminds us that Native people were always innovators, always coming up with new ways of doing things, preparing things, learning from our environment and that can also mean embracing modern technology. “I like to show people that yeah, cleaning huckleberries can be a drag, but I found this really neat thing called a steam juicer and I throw them in the stainless steel colander and the middle compartment collects the juice and water steams the berries. Instead of hours and hours of cleaning huckleberries, elderberries and gooseberries, the steam juicer just alleviates all of that. I make elderberry syrup out of it, gooseberry jelly,” she is not afraid to embrace what can potentially make her life a little easier. And as a mother of six, time is precious. I find myself turning to my pressure cooker and my food processor more often than not these days. A pressure cooker can braise deer meat in no time at all, I can chop salmon for salmon burgers in my food processor, letting it do all the work, embracing innovation. “Don’t discount the old rock and smashing the acorn, don’t discount cleaning berries if that’s something you’re into, but if you want to get something done in a hurry it’s ok to use technology,” Meagen says warmly, letting us all off the hook.

If you are able to loop your kids, nephews, nieces, or young cousins into learning about your traditional foods, Meagen says, “Kids won’t waste their food as much if they put in their own time and effort, they’re going to savor it.” Tell food stories as you learn them, one of my favorites is The Acorn Maidens, a story that reminds me that Tan Oak turned her unfinished hat inside out and that’s how we can identify Her among the other acorns. Teach them the words for foods in your language if you are able to, just slow down and savor the memories and knowledge of how to tend and prepare our plant relatives learned over time immemorial, you know, put some gravy on it.

Summer Recipes

Some of my recipes are very traditional, some of them are a very contemporary take on Native California ingredients. Not all of our foods can be sustainably gathered, and many of us don’t live in our traditional biomes. And often specialty ingredients can be cost prohibitive, decolonizing your diet can be a paradox of availability, appropriation, and intention. And remember, Indigenous Californians didn’t utilize agricultural practices the way that most people define them, we tended vast forests, savannahs, deserts, and coastal environs.

Salmon Burger with lettuce, tomato & avocado

Salmon Burgers

Makes 4

2 tbsp avocado oil

1lb finely minced wild caught salmon (I used a food processor on some steelhead I had in the freezer but canned salmon, canned smoked salmon, will all work in this recipe, try to avoid farmed salmon)

1/2 cup acorn flour (whole wheat flour or a gluten-free flour will work as well, any kind of flour, avoid white flour if possible)

1 egg

2-3 wild ramps or green onions chopped

1/2 cup seaweeds rehydrated and squeezed of water (you can find sustainably harvested dried seaweed in most grocery stores now)

salt & pepper (remember the seaweed is pretty salty, and if you’re watching your salt, omit, or give it a sprinkle after cooking.

Mix everything together in a bowl or in the food processor, it should stick together as you form patties. If it’s too wet, add a little more flour a tablespoon at a time. If it’s a little too dry, put in some of the water that the seaweed soaked in.

Heat avocado oil in a large cast iron or non-stick pan over medium high heat.

Add patties to the pan and cook 7-10 minutes on each side until cooked through. I recommend putting them on a whole wheat bun with garden tomato, Indian lettuce, and avocado.

Summer Grape Leaf Wraps

I love grape leaf wraps because they are an excellent way to use up leftover rice, they’re served cold and they’re so refreshing, sweet, and savory for the summertime.

I also appreciate that they are extremely versatile. You can wrap them in mullein, cabbage, store-bought or fresh grape leaves; you can fill them with ground meat, chopped acorns, or a mix of seeds like amaranth and quinoa. Though wild rice isn’t Native to California, using a mix of grains and seeds like coastal buckwheat, wild oats, and chia are traditional, so feel free to substitute as you like. I made these with wild rice to acknowledge that earlier this year the White Earth Band of Ojibwe passed a tribal law granting wild rice its own enforceable legal rights, making it illegal for a business or legal entity to violate the rights of the plant.

1 jar canned or 20-25 home lacto-fermented wild grape leaves

2 cups cooked wild rice (Preferably from Minnesota, if that isn’t feasible, I like Rancho Gordo, but use what you have available)

1/4 cup soaked dried berries (preferably a tart berry like huckleberry but even raisins or currants will do)

1/4 cup chopped chives (chives can be replaced with regular finely diced onion, or half onion, half garlic, it’s up to you)

3 tbsp pinons

1/2 cup finely minced parsley

1 tsp fennel pollen (finely chopped fennel fronds)

1/4 cup mint, finely chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp lemon juice

salt & pepper

Mix all ingredients into a bowl.

Place grape leaf with the veiny side up, stem side closest to you. Place a dollop of your mix just above where the stem would go. Fold bottom flaps up, then side flaps, and roll into a compact package. Place in a lightly oiled glass dish, seam side down. Once they’re all rolled up, brush all the wraps with a light coat of olive oil and refrigerate.

*If using mullein leaves, you’ll want to steam them before refrigeration to soften the leaves. I do not recommend using raw grape leaves, they’re rich with tannins and may be bitter. A simple facto-fermentation for a week will leech them right out and give you the added bonus of probiotics.

Chími Nu'am (Let’s Eat) ~ Interview with Meagen & Emily Baldy - Hupa