HaŠarak Waruc (Healing Meal) Teejop Native Food Celebration

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As the challenging year of 2020 draws toward a close, we wanted to get into the kitchen to offer a special meal highlighting Indigenous foods. The HaŠarak waruc (Healing Meal) is the Teejop (Madison or Four Lakes) Native Food Celebration prepared by Elena Terry (Wild Bearies), Yusuf Bin-Rella (TradeRoots and UW Housing), and Dan Cornelius (Intertribal Agriculture Council and Yowela?talih Farms).

We ask that you pre-order by Thursday evening, November 19th to better guarantee your order, but we will work to fill orders received on Friday. However, quantities of both dishes are limited. We are also offering a sponsor a meal program, so please contact us if you need help with a meal for you or your family.

Place Your Order

Why is the meal unique?

Native people have lived in the Teejop area for over 10,000 years, yet few contemporary local residents are aware that wild rice surrounded the shores our our lakes and waterways when the territorial was established in the 1830s, nor are they aware of the countless ways to prepare our heritage Indigenous corn that continues to be a mainstay food in many Native households. Most local and Wisconsin residents are similarly unaware that herring and whitefish are probably the two most sustainable and healthy regional fish. This meal highlights these ingredients, most of which have been sourced by American Indian food producers. Check out the producer directory, and please consider submitting an application for the no-cost “Made by American Indians” trademark.

Who are those American Indian Producers?

The Red Cliff Fish Company opened its doors for operations on Monday, November 16th, 2020 after several years of planning, fundraising, and efforts to gain the support, partnership, and trust of the Tribe’s fishermen. This Tribal operation is working to support fishermen with higher prices while better connecting superior product to Native and non-Native customers.

Lake Superior herring season is in full swing. Historically prized for its roe (eggs), herring is particularly high in omega-3 fatty acids and extremely low in biotoxins found in most fish since the herring are not a predatory fish but rather eat zooplankton.

Check back for more food producer information over the next couple days. These producers include:

  • Bow and Arrow (Ute Mountain Ute)
  • Spirit Lake Native Farms
  • Yowela?talih^ Farms
  • Ramona Farms
  • Sakari Botanicals
  • Dynamite Hill Farms
  • Ziibimiijwang
  • Red Lake Nation Foods
  • and others

What is the Native Food Network and Mobile Farmers Market?

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The Intertribal Agriculture Council launched a pilot food distribution effort, the Mobile Farmers Market, in 2013 to explore how to better connect American Indian producers to customers on both on and off reservations. The effort has participated or hosted dozens of markets over the years while also expanding the presence of Native foods and arts at countless conferences and events.

Covid has posed challenges to staffing, so we are not currently participating in farmers markets or special events. However, plans are underway for launching a dedicated regional distribution cooperative to better serve Tribal food producers. And stay tuned for other news and efforts in the near future.

You can also find a list of American Indian food producers at http://www.indianagfoods.org.

Summary of 2019 Events

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The Mobile Farmers Market and our partners have been part of some amazing events in 2019.  Here’s a snapshot of some of those events:

Food and Farming 101 Workshop (Menominee Nation, WI)

menominee workshopIndigenous Farming Conference (White Earth, MN)

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Community Feast (Madison, WI)

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Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit (Pokagon Pottawotomi, MI)

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National Restaurant Association Show (Chicago, IL)

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Planting Workshops in May and June (assorted locations)

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Taste of Madison

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Tribal Food & Ag Workshop/Seed-to-Table Dinner

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Indigenous Food Expo (Duluth, MN)

Food Sovereignty Summit (Oneida Nation, WI)

Rematriating Indigenous Seeds

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Native communities have grown and saved seeds for countless generations.  Many of these historic seeds have been lost in recent decades, but efforts led by the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network are helping to bring back both knowledge required to save these seeds and the actual seeds themselves.

A partnership with Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) based in Decorah, Iowa reviewed SSE’s 33,000+ seed collection, finding over 1,000 seeds with direct connections to Native communities.  Twenty-five of these seeds were chosen for growing in 2018, with the resulting seed harvest then going back to the communities from which these seeds originated.

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The first seed rematration through this effort occurred at the conclusion of the Southwest Intertribal Food Summit when seeds and a full squash were returned to the governor and elders of Taos Pueblo.  While Taos Pueblo growers grow a number of types of squash, seeds from this historic squash variety have crossed with other squashes over the years, so this historic variety had been lost but is now returned.

TSA Tribally Supported Agricultural Box

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Check out some of our new products at the market!
sacred medicines to involve in your holiday traditions
A great variety of native harvested wild rice

Tribally Supported Agricluture Box

We have a large variety of tribal made products coming our way this month- we would love the opportunity to share this healthy food with you.

Each month we will send you a variety of seasonal and limited specialty products with helpful recipe cards. Also a great gift idea!

(Products shown are a sample of products you will receive dependent on season and availability).

Visit our website and link here to purchase your TSA or other Tribal Made Products!

https://mobilefarmersmarket.localfoodmarketplace.com/Products

We also offer extended TSA share commitments of 6 months and 1 year. Contact us at market@indianaglink.com for more information.

Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit 2018

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The Meskwaki Nation will be hosting 2018 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit in partnership with the Intertribal Agriculture Council and Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance in Tama, Iowa from May 9-13. Registration is now open at the Eventbrite site by clicking here.  This year’s event will again feature a concurrent regional youth summit as well and information for that will be forthcoming soon.

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Additional event information, including draft agenda and registration, will be available shortly. Lodging with a special summit rate is available at the Meskwaki Casino and Hotel. Check out event summaries from past Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summits at Gun Lake Pottawatomi’s Jijak Camp in 2016 and 2017 and Red Lake in 2016. Also search #foodsummit on social media to find more pictures and stories from past events.

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Have ideas, suggestions, or questions?

Past Video of Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit Events:

Maizie White announces Jijak Luncheon

Maizie White describes the Jijak Luncheon at the 2017 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit at Jijak Camp near Hopkins, Michigan.

Foraging for Food, Fuel and Medicines: Hyssop

The Red Lake Ojibwe Nation and Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) take you on a short walk along part of the Red Lake Ojibwe Nation’s, Red Lake and the woods that surround it foraging for food, fuel and medicines as part of the Great Lakes Intertribal Fall Food Summit held at Red Lake, Minnesota during September of 2016.

Foraging for Food, Fuel and Medicines: American Basswood

Here is Kevin Finny, former Director of the Jijak Foundation for the Gun Lake Pottawatomi in Michigan speaking about the use of American Basswood, one of several species of trees identified during the fall 2016 Intertribal Food Summit held on the Red Lake Ojibwe Nation during September.

Foraging for Food, Fuel and Medicines: Milkweed

With Kevin Finney, former executive director of the Jijak Foundation and Tashia Hart of the Sioux Chef Team in the woods and fields of Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation foraging for food, fuel and medicines as part of the Great Lakes Intertribal Fall Food Summit during September of 2016.

Food Festival Chefs Special at Jijak 2016

During the 2016 Intertribal Food Summit the Saturday’s most favorite presentation were the Chefs special Food Festival — where each chef or team had a chance to prepare and serve to participants their special main dish, salad or dessert.

Making Traditional Ricing Sticks with Roger LaBine

Roger LaBine works with participants making wild rice knocking sticks at the 2017 Great Lakes Intertribal Summit.

Foraging and Harvesting from the Forest

One of the featured workshop of the Intertribal Food Summit is the Foraging for Food workshops. At the Red Lake Intertribal Food Summit it was called “Harvesting from the Forest” and was be led by Tashia Hart of Red Lake, who works with the Sioux Chef, Sean Sherman. Many other participants assistde in identifying and harvesting for the feasts, plants and medicines that are commonly used by Indigenous people for health and nutrition.

Buddy Raphael and the family Bootagan

Buddy Raphael discusses the family Bootagan that they use to grind rice, corn, barley and other products. The Bootagan, or grinding (smashing) cylinder is made of birch and Buddy worked with several participant to help them build their own. The next video below is also about making a Bootagan.

Making Anishinabe Corn and Flour Mortars

Participants at the 2017 Great Lakes Intertribal Summit are shown how to make and use a traditional corn, rice, barley mortar for pounding into meal.

Making Haudenosaunee Planting Sticks

Clayton Bascoupe assists participants at the 2017 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit making traditional Haudenosaunee Planting sticks.

Today’s Menu by Brian Yazzie – Jijak 2017

Touching base with just one of several Indigenous chefs in attendance at the 2017 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit at Gun Lake’s Camp Jijak.

Foraging at Jijak for Food and Salads – 2016

Participants of the 2016 Intertribal Food Summit at the Gun Lake Pottawatomi Tribe’s Camp Jijak forage for food and medicine for the event’s meals, while learning about plants and medicines from the woods.

Holiday Market

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Come check us out at the Holiday Market at the Will-Mar Neighborhood Center, 953 Jennifer St. in Madison.  We will be there from 4pm-7pm and will have a variety of  Gift Boxes available featuring our Native made products!

New Location for Mobile Farmers Market and Updates

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Mobile Farmers Market is moving!  We are transitioning to a more cooperative model that will be more beneficial to everyone involved. This involves moving from our present retail location to our new warehouse location: 2890 Terra Court Unit 32, Sun Prairie, WI 53590.

We will be focusing more on distribution, bulk orders to restaurants/chefs, and vending opportunities. Another focus of ours is on more online sales and to continue our monthly TSA (Tribally Supported Agriculture). We will have the space to make larger purchases and hope that producers will work with us to offer competitive wholesale pricing in order to continue providing products to our Native communities and to continue outreach within non-Native communities. After the holidays, we will be able to order in larger quantities and to handle more frequent shipping.   We will maintain our marketing and outreach efforts in order to continue garnering support for our Native producers. Locally, you will find our products at Supercharge! Foods with other retail locations coming soon.

Please contact Dan Cornelius, 608-280-1267 or Liz Kiesling, 608-444-8156 with questions.

Processing parched corn into Hominy

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By Paul DeMain

Many workshops offered during the recent Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Food Summits of 2016 at Red Lake, Minnesota, Madison and Camp Jijak in 2016 and 2017 have involved the gathering/harvesting of resources and their processing of some of these foods into Value Added Products (VAP) for storage, future, or a diversity of uses in their new condition. Some products gathered are always used on site in order to facilitate sharing of traditional food preparations and ancient or contemporary recipes.

Amongst those products include what the Ojibwe called Mandamin (The Great Seed) or corn and for which there has been some 350+ varieties amongst tribes identified so far. May varieties of Indian corn have been lost — to history, maybe Mansanto, or caches that are yet to be found. A good example might be the White Flint Corn described as growing on Madeline Island, in Lake Superior — also know as the former capital of the Ojibwe Nation, a variety of corn that is described as growing there in the 1700s. While it is possible, and probably likely, that the White Flint grown there is related to other northern Wisconsin, Great Lakes or Island flints that are well known, (Like Bear Island White Flint) and could be connected genetically to the Madeline Island gardens, to date there has not been a Madeline Island White Flint Corn seed, or seed cache identified in seed repositories, museums or private collections.

Jijak_#1George_Cooking_HominyLac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe elder George Martin, assisted by Buddy Raphael (not shown) discuss the boiling process for making parched corn into hominy. Raphael says he likes to let his corn dry for over a year before using it for cooking and other needs.

After the parched corn is boiled in an alkaline solution for a lengthy time period, in this case hardwood ashes and for some tribes maple ashes in particular rather then lye, lime or baking soda, the corn is then transported to a screen for further cleaning. By now, a thin outer shell and little seed connection nub should come off easily from the corn kernel when rubbed between two fingers. The boiling in ash, or lime process changes the chemistry of the corn, contributes calcium, potassium and trace minerals to the corn and makes it more nutritious while at the same time loosening a thin outer shell casing from the kernel.

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The cooked corn is transported to a screen for further cleaning, drying and discussions with Camp Jijak participants.

The Oneida’s of Wisconsin hand pick and dehydrate much of their white flint corn and then prepare it in this similar manner and in some cases they will boil it again for grinding and making corn meal while adding kidney beans and making small round loafs to refrigerate for storage. Hopi people of the Southwest used ground blue corn mixed with small amounts of willow wood ash to prepare piki, a thin, crepe-like, blue bread. A porridge made from hominy in the south is called grits. Many tribes had their own technique for preparing their corn for future storage and seed keepers have identified over 300 varieties of corn grown historically in Indian Country with some sweet varieties not suitable for making hominy.

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Below: Buddy Raphael provides some traditional teachings and advice for making corn hominy.

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For more information on programs provided by the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) you can go on the net here: IAC

Other Youtube videos from Camp Jijak.

Seed Keepers & Rowen White

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Photos by D.Kakkak

One of the world’s wonderful speakers about the nature of, treatment, care and planting of seeds is Akwesasne Mohawk seed keeper Rowen White. Through several workshops in the Great Lakes and at the Gun Lake Pottawatomi tribes’ Camp Jijak in 2016 and 2017 White has led discussions on the cultural treatment, history and love of seeds that Indigenous people have.

White also brought some of her wonderful and extensive seed collections to assist in teaching people about the role of labeling, organizing, acclimating and caring for seeds for storage and planting. At just about any event that Rowen attends, there will be an abundance of seeds to look at, and in many cases share or exchange.

According to Rowen White “once you step on the seed keepers path, you will have more seeds then you know what to do with, because seeds, they are always multiplying exponentially.”

Many of the conferences, sponsored in part by the Inter-Tribal Agricultural Council (IAC) are meant to help bring and grow opportunities for American Indian farmers, growers, forage and gatherers and enhance the ability of Indigenous communities to become food self-sufficient once again.

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