Feeding a Movement: The Kitchens of the Standing Rock Camps

Chills of love and respect kept going down my spine reading this account of the kitchens at Standing Rock, from activist-anthropologist-writer Liz Hoover, on an ever interesting and insightful blog.

From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds: Indigenizing the Local Food Movement

Meal line up outside the mess hall of the Main Kitchen. Photo by Elizabeth Hoover

Since April, thousands of Indigenous people and their allies have converged on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and treaty lands, to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), slated to cross under the Missouri River directly upstream from the reservation. People have come from around the world to pray; to stand in opposition to Energy Transfer Partners and the Morton County Sheriff’s Department as well as 71 other law enforcement agencies; and to form community. Some people come for the weekend, others have quit their jobs and made resisting this pipeline their full time work. They spend their days building infrastructure at the camp, chopping wood, sorting donations, praying and singing at the main fire, and putting their bodies on the line between the land and an…

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Feeding the Fight Against the Dakota Access Pipeline

Supply Drives for the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone Camps in US Cities on Monday 19 September… am sure you can search for updates and addresses after this date– if you have good info, please leave it in the comments…

Food Sovereignty and Native American Foodways

Just watched this inspiring talk via The Foodways Project, “an exploration of the intersection between food, identity, and power. [Their} mission is to undo racism through food-focused education, empowerment, and activism in a movement led by people of color.”

Visit their blog for a collection of video resources on the theme of Celebrating Indigenous Foodways for Native American Heritage Month, where I happened upon Valerie Segrest’s talk, linked above.

Ponca Heritage Corn and Protesting the Pipeline in Nebraska

PLANTING CORN, NOT PIPELINES : Kitchencounterculture gets fascinated by people in Nebraska reminding us of the importance of corn as a central and a symbolic food… linking climate, water and food movements … bringing together unlikely allies.   The Cowboy-Indian Alliance protests in an exciting new way.  Read on…

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People in rural Nebraska are protesting the Keystone Pipeline running through their lands, and doing it in an exciting way, reflecting agricultural history and a vision for the future.. Thanks to the internet, one can live halfway across a large yet small world and find oneself piecing together a story that makes important connections between food and climate movements. Watch this local newscast:

The Cowboy Indian Alliance represents the fact that new coalitions and allegiances are necessary to a diverse Climate Movement.  Read about it via 350.org and in this link, with great photos.  The symbolism of the alliance, two groups so mythically/historically/stereotypically opposed, speaks loudly against the dangers of the Keystone Pipeline, and of the Tar Sands project too, regarding climate instability as overarching and destruction of water supplies and communities as immediate..

Climate Access describes the healing aspects of movement building that the Cowboy-Indian Alliance represents.  This link shares positive, meaningful lessons.

Dried Cholla Buds and Tepary Beans

Was just having a lazy browse on the Saveur Magazine website, and noticed a piece called “6 Native American Ingredients.” Curiously I clicked on a link, and found this website  for the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona. They have a small on-line shop. I would absolutely LOVE to try these cactus buds, and the tepary beans, brown and white both. They also have a magazine about traditional and contemporary foodways that looks great! Someday, someday, because I am so far (and postage would probably be prohibitive) but if you happen to be in the USA, you could order yourself those beans and buds and cook them up and tell me all about it.

Here’s another useful link should you happen to be in a cold, wet, constant drizzle of a climate like Wales dreaming of the soul foods of  a hot, dry dessert:

http://www.flordemayoarts.com/pages/cholla.html

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11 March 2014   Just read this Zester Daily piece on Decolonizing the Taste Buds from commodity foods….

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