The Menu Archives » Native America Calling

Rising consumer costs and cuts to subsidized food programs are increasing the pressure on organizations that deliver food assistance. Native American food pantries are trying to forge new partnerships and develop additional tribal resources — like farms and meat processors — to meet the demand, all while reducing the stigma for those seeking help putting food on their tables. We’ll hear about how...

"The Blue Corn Kitchen " by Alana Yazzie (Diné) gives young reader’s a glimpse of the traditional corn-based Navajo foods many Navajo grandmothers have stocked in their kitchens. It's the latest project from the self-made, Navajo lifestyle and food blogger who also goes by The Fancy Navajo. Howdy Cakes is a new pastry and cake business by Diné culinarian, Liz McKenzie. It's in partnership with a s...

Native American ranchers and beef producers are among those pushing back against President Donald Trump’s initiative to import cheap foreign beef to lower consumer prices. Critics of the plan say it will do little reduce prices and undercuts producers in this country who are already facing major industry headwinds including drought, unpredictable policies, and high operating costs. The American ca...

Renowned chef Nephi Craig (White Mountain Apache, Navajo) admits he hid his alcoholism fairly well as he was making a name for himself as a Native chef throughout the 2000s. His memoir, " Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef ", details his arduous recovery and how food and the kitchen helped him figure out his purpose and path to healing. In the debut children's no...

A new café in Vancouver, British Columbia faced mounting criticism from the Indigenous community for its questionable use of Indigenous branding. The incident ignited conversations about the potential harms of cultural appropriation. Santa Ana Pueblo just entered into a partnership with New Mexico’s largest winery. The vineyard on the tribe’s reservation is just one of a handful that are owned and...

Taos and Skwah First Nation chef and entrepreneur Caprio "CJ" Bernal opened an expansion of their original coffee bar on Taos Pueblo. Dawn Butterfly Café is the new full-service cafe that grew from their starting concept in 2022. The name and energy that drives the project honors Bernal’s late sister. Camas, a wild purple flower with an onion-like bulb, has been an important plant for Native peopl...

An intensive traditional foods program aimed at curbing diabetes is credited with major weight loss and health benefits for some of its participants. Native Food for Life is a collaboration between tribal health officials and the Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine. Native America Calling had an inadvertent role in the program’s inception on the Navajo Nation almost two decades ago. It ha...

Kickapoo chef Crystal Wahpepah documents the intertribal flavors and characteristics of contemporary Native American cuisine and her upbringing in Oakland, Calif. in her debut cookbook, “ A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior .” Woven through the recipes and gorgeous food photos, Wahpepah gives readers and cooks a tour of her restaurant, Wahpepah’s Kitchen ,...

Kasey Jernigan (Choctaw) interviewed and observed Choctaw women over a period of years about food and their relationships to it. She documents what she learned in those observations in her new book, “ Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways and Indigeneity ”. The book uses federal food and nutrition assistance as the jumping off point for an exploration of individual perceptions of food and colon...

Do Native Americans need more encouragement to consume saturated fats? Native nutritionists are wondering how the new federal dietary guidelines just unveiled by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. intersects with decades of scientific research urging the population with the highest rates of heart disease to limit their saturated fat intake. The new federal food pyra...

A historically devastating salmon die-off on the Klamath River in 2002 was among the influences putting Amy Bowers Cordalis (Yurok) on her path of conservation. She recounts that moment, along with her family’s multigenerational fight to save their ties to the river, in her memoir, “The Water Remembers.” She is an instrumental voice in what became the largest river reclamation project in U.S. hist...

In his second cookbook, “ Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America ,” Sean Sherman (Oglala Lakota), James Beard Award-wining chef and restaurateur , dives deeper into the Indigenous culinary communities of 13 regions of North America and Mesoamerica. He shares dozens of recipes inspired by his travels and the people he calls friends, teachers, and leaders that...

Federal food assistance is set to stop November 1 if lawmakers are unable to solve the government shutdown. That means the supply of food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to low-income Native Americans will begin running out without help from alternative sources. Some tribes are putting funds and other efforts toward filling the sudden gap. At least one tribe is culling...

An unassuming café on Isleta Pueblo just won one of the most sought-after culinary recognitions in New Mexico. Isleta Grill is this year’s Green Chile Cheeseburger Challenge Champion for their frybread version of a regional delicacy. In northern Wisconsin, this year’s wild rice yields are low. The state Department of Natural Resources blames wind damage and heavy rainfall from a series of strong s...