Food, Culture, and Storytelling

This article appears as part of Native America, a four-part series that explores the world created by America’s First Peoples. Reach back 15,000 years to reveal massive cities aligned to the stars, unique systems of science and spirituality, and 100 million people connected by social networks spanning two continents. Premiered October 23, 2018. Visit the Native America site for more.

Food carries an emotional memory. Certain aromas and flavors make an imprint in our minds and have the powerful ability to return us to a particular place, person or experience much more intensely than a visual or auditory reminder. This is part of the magic and medicine in all forms of cooking, but indigenous foods, in particular, are imbued with a history of both comfort and pathos that reaches far beyond the ingredients themselves. People often ask me to share recipes for the traditional foods I cook, and I am always happy to do so. But no matter how precise, I feel these recipes always fall short of the true representation of the dish. At the heart of every traditional dish is a story.

Storytelling is an important part of Cherokee culture. Many of our stories not only contain lessons about how we nourish our bodies but also about where we come from and how we should treat one another. When you hold a strawberry in your hand or pull the husk from an ear of corn, knowing the stories that accompany these foods transforms them. They become more than an ingredient to measure and cook with for a specified amount of time. That strawberry becomes more than just a berry. That ear of corn is so much more than "just an ear of corn." It is an ancestor, it is our mother; a reminder of who we are, what we’ve been through, and why we must continue to survive. Every meal has the potential to be a small ceremony, a direct link between our ancestors before us and the future of our people.

This brings me to food sovereignty. Indigenous food sovereignty is a movement to reclaim the traditional foodways of our ancestors in an effort to restore the physical and spiritual health of our people. Before the colonization of North America, our ancestors were healthy and strong. They led active lives and subsisted on a diet of corn, beans, squash, berries, greens, wild rice, fruits, nuts, seeds and game that provided complete and balanced nutrition specifically fitted for people in their region. With the arrival of European colonizers, this balance was drastically, and often violently, interrupted. Europeans brought with them livestock and crops from their continents, with the intent to colonize the Americas through both the migration of European settlers and the imposition of European foods on Native populations. Indigenous American foods, comprised of staples drastically different from the European diet, were viewed as inferior and unfit for consumption by the colonizers.

The second motivation was to establish control. Strategically, people are easier to subdue and contain when you have control over their food source. Europeans cleared vast amounts of land that formerly sustained all the plant-based foods and game Native peoples relied on, introducing privately owned livestock and crops. In addition to the invasion of foreign food sources, the establishment of governments and the physical removal of Native people from their traditional lands resulted in a loss of culture and access to their traditional diet and lifestyle, creating a dependence on government assistance for sustenance.

Our reliance on processed foods, which lack both soul and nutritional value, has created a disconnect from the relationship we once had with the plants and animals that sustain us. But those plants and animals are still here. Our relationship can be mended by telling their stories at our dinner tables. Each time we make the decision to forgo the box or bag of instant dinner, and instead prepare a simple meal with fresh, traditional ingredients, we have an opportunity to recall the significance of those ingredients as we cook. This remembrance through food nourishes our bodies and connection to our culture. Our ways, our memories, our cultural identity, live on inside us with every bite.

Chef Nico Albert (Cherokee Nation) is a self-taught chef, caterer and student of traditional Indigenous cuisines based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Raised in California and Arizona, Nico returned to the homeland of her mother’s people and began to reestablish a relationship with her Cherokee community. Her journey to learn traditional Cherokee ways, in particular foodways, grew to encompass the Indigenous cuisines of tribes from all parts of North America, and led to her involvement in Indigenous food revitalization and food sovereignty.

As Executive Chef of Duet Restaurant + Jazz, a modern American eatery, a jazz club in the heart of the Tulsa Arts District, Chef Nico draws on both her Native American and Acadian heritage, as well as her affinity for indigenous Mexican and New Orleanian culture and cooking. When not leading the culinary team at Duet, Chef Nico devotes her time and passion for Indigenous cuisine to improve health and wellness in the Native American community.