Business | Environment | Health | National

Eater: Native cuisine hidden in America's growing food industry

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

The FireLake Fry Bread Taco, owned by the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, debuted last year Photo from Facebook

Food and agriculture are important parts of Native culture and Native plants like corn, tomatoes and beans are staples worldwide. But why are there so few prominent Native chefs and restaurants? Eater National takes a closer look at the issue:

The American palate is expanding. Over the last few decades, formerly exotic foods like raw fish have gone from "gross" to grocery store staple: According to market research by IBISWorld, the sushi industry, for example, has grown 2.5 percent every year since 2009. Yet there's one key cuisine that has somehow gotten lost along the way — and we don't even need to go far to find it. The cuisine? Native American — perhaps the most truly local style of cooking around.
Though there are restaurants that focus on certain styles of Native American food — from frybread houses to fine dining — they're few and far between. Even New York City, one of the culinary capitals of the United States, has boasted only one such restaurant, the now-defunct Silverbird, which opened in the mid-'80s. It says something that one of the few Native restaurants on the East Coast is housed in the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.
The supposed Native American food resurgence has been brewing for the last decade — reflected in growing media coverage, the opening of new restaurants, and acclaimed non-Native chefs exploring the cuisine (Chicago's Michelin-starred Elizabeth is launching a series of Native American tribute dinners later this summer). But if there was ever a time for this cuisine to rise into the spotlight, it's now. Many of the best restaurants in the world feature foraged and/or local, seasonal foods on their menus. In the United States, these restaurants often fall under the "New American" culinary genre — but their cooking has more in common with the French approach than anything on this continent. But with diners more acutely aware of the ideas of farm-to-table, locavore dining, it might be the moment for a few plucky restaurants around the country to change that. As Loretta Barrett Oden, member of the Potawotami tribe, chef, and Emmy-award winning host of PBS' Seasoned with Spirit says, "We're the original farm-to-table."

Get the Story:
When Will Native American Food Finally Get Its Due? (Eater 6/8)