fbpx
Select Page

Native Foods Celebration at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe

Sunday, May 20, 2007
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO ? Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) are bringing together over two dozen farmers, ranchers, gatherers, historians, cooks and food activists for a Native Food Producers’ Retreat at IAIA in Santa Fe, NM. To complement this retreat, a free public celebration will be held on Sunday May 20 from 10:00am to 4:00pm on the IAIA campus.

The Native Foods Celebration will highlight diverse native food products through cooking demonstrations and exhibition booths. There will be many local food producers and various types of local food products on display, with opportunities to learn about and sample delicious native foods:

Chef Walter Whitewater of the Din? (Navajo) Nation will prepare a marinated grilled quail with a New Mexican Red Chile honey glaze
Chef John Sharpe of The Turquoise Room in Winslow, Arizona will grill marinated Navajo Churro Lamb for fresh tacos
Chef Loretta Barrett Oden (Potawatomi) will do a twist on rice and beans using hand-harvested wild rice and the full-flavored tepary bean, the most drought-adapted legume in the world
Chef Lois Ellen Frank (Kiowa) will serve samples of a chocolate pi?on torte with local peach honey and hand-gathered prickly pear syrup, a recipe from her James Beard Award winning cookbook
Chef Richard Hetzler of Mitsitam Native Foods Caf? at the National Museum of the American Indian will not only lead a cooking demonstration, but will also seek new native foods to incorporate into his caf?
Jonette Sam of Picuris Pueblo will ladle out piping hot buffalo chile stew with meat from the Pueblo’s Bison Program. For those with a whetted appetite, their buffalo meat products will also be available for sale.
Famed author & chef, Deborah Madison, will be signing copies of her book, Local Flavors, along with other local authors.

The Santa Fe public premiere of Loretta Barrett Oden’s PBS series, Seasoned with Spirit, will screen throughout the day. The Seasoned with Spirit series is a culinary celebration of America’s bounty combining Native American history and culture with delicious, healthy recipes inspired by indigenous foods.

Slow Food USA
Also at the event, RAFT partner, The Cultural Conservancy, will be documenting the food traditions of Native American communities by conducting audio interviews with people who are preserving, reintroducing and revitalizing Native American foods and food traditions. This event is made possible through the generous support of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Project partners.

The closed-session Native Food Producers’ Retreat the next day, Monday, May 21, will convene a small cross-section of leaders in the US native foods movement to exchange community strategies for strengthening native foods within regional food systems, and to build momentum for a cooperative movement to revitalize these systems. Over the course of the day, native food producers, chefs, community activists and RAFT partner organizations will explore practices for marketing and sourcing native foods within native communities, as well as explore the challenges and benefits of working with non-native as well as native retailers, chefs, activists and eaters. These facilitated conversations will also focus on strategies recently used by native communities to develop public policy to safeguard native seeds and foster sustainable production of native foods on tribal lands.

RAFT brings seven of the country’s most prominent education, conservation and food organizations together to document and restore America’s agricultural biodiversity. RAFT initiatives bring food producers, chefs and consumers together to develop and promote conservation strategies, sustainable food production and awareness of the endangered foods and food traditions of the United States. Partner organizations include: American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, Chefs Collaborative, The Cultural Conservancy, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Seed Savers Exchange and Slow Food USA.

IAIA is a four-year Tribal Arts and Land Grant College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Through its Native Foods in Culinary Arts Project, IAIA is focused on revitalizing the cultural knowledge and methods of growing and preparing food integral to Native American life. The partnership with RAFT and exposure to leaders in the native foods movement at this event is a natural fit with the aspirations the college has for its native culinary program.

Native Foods Celebration at IAIA
Sunday, May 20, 2007
10:00am – 4:00pm
Institute of American Indian Arts
83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM

Directions can be found at: http://www.iaia.edu/map.php
*This event is free and open to the public

For information about RAFT: /raft/

For information about IAIA: http://www.iaia.edu