Sep 15, 2023
Hosted by: Dr. Marylynn Steckley
Produced in collaboration with: Dr. Sonia Wesche, Victoria Marchand & Dr. Josh Steckley
In this episode of Handpicked: Stories from the Field, we present an episode of the Indigenous Health and Food Systems Podcast called, “What are Indigenous Foods?” This podcast is hosted by Dr. Marylynn Steckley from Carleton University and is produced in collaboration with Dr. Sonia Wesche and Victoria Marchand from the University of Ottawa and Dr. Josh Steckley from the University of Toronto, Scarborough. The Indigenous Health and Food Systems Podcast aims to elevate Indigenous scholars' voices in Indigenous health, food sovereignty, and the social determinants of health. This particular episode focuses on what Indigenous foods are, and how there are many complex answers to that question because of the impacts of colonization.
Contributors
Co-Producers & Hosts: Laine Young & Amanda Di Battista
Producer: Charlie Spring
Sound Design & Editing: Laine Young & Narayan Subramoniam
Guests
Ida Harkness
Emily Charman
Chanel Best
Brette Thomson
Havailah Arnold
Support & Funding
Dr. Josh Steckley was supported by the Sustainable Food and Farming Futures Cluster at the University of Toronto, Scarborough
The Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems
Balsillie School for International Affairs
Music Credits
Keenan Reimer-Watts
Keith Whiteduck
Resources
Moving Beyond Acknowledgments-
LSPIRG
Whose Land
Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food
Systems
Indigenous Food Systems and Food Sovereignty
Podcast
Telling Our Twisted Stories Podcast- BANNOCK
Unreserved with Falen Johnson (2020). How Indigenous Leaders Are Changing the Future of Food
Tennant, Zoe Heaps (2020). Does Bannock Have a Place in Indigenous Cuisine?
CBC News (2015) Feast Cafe Bistro takes eating local to the next level.
Connect with Us:
Email: Handpickedpodcast@WLU.ca
Twitter/X: @Handpickedpodc
Facebook: Handpicked Podcast
Glossary of Terms
Bannock
“Bannock
has meant many things to many Indigenous people throughout history,
from pre-contact to the fur trade to present times. Before contact,
Indigenous people made their own types of bannock and breads using
camas bulbs, lichen, moss, cattails, roasted acorns and other
plants and roots that were Indigenous to their traditional
territories. After contact, Indigenous people began to use wheat
and oat flour brought over by the Scottish during the fur trade.
Flour was a non-Indigenous food but soon became the staple
ingredient in bannock, and in the lives of Indigenous
people.”
https://martlet.ca/bannock-consuming-colonialism/
Colonialism
“Colonialism
has been defined as systems and practices that ‘seek to impose the
will of one people on another and to use the resources of the
imposed people for the benefit of the imposer’ (Assante, 2006).
Colonialism can operate within political, sociological, cultural
values and systems of a place even after occupation by colonizers
has ended. Colonization is defined as the act of political,
physical and intellectual occupation of space by the (often
forceful) displacement of Indigenous populations, and gives rise to
settler-colonialism, colonial and neo-colonial relations, and
coloniality.”
https://www.yorku.ca/edu/unleading/systems-of-oppression/coloniality-and-settler-colonialism/
Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt
A symbol and reminder of covenants between the 5 Nations of the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch Government that guided later treaty-building and envisaged a relationship of reciprocity and sharing (that all people sharing a territory should leave enough for others), a promise that many Indigenous people feel was broken many times.
Foodways
A term to describe peoples’ cultural, social and economic food practices, habits and desires (Alkon et al.)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718513000936
Kanyen'kehà:ka
Mohawk language.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mohawk
Sky Woman
The story of how Sky Woman fell from Skyworld to start life on Turtle Island, passed down and told by different Iroquoian-speaking people to describe the creation of human life on earth but also telling aspects of the Original Instructions guiding relations between humans and the natural world (Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass).
https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/
Discussion Questions
1. In what ways might Indigenous people have a complicated relationship with bannock? Is ‘authenticity’ a useful term for thinking about food heritage and tradition?
2.
What
does Kahente Horn-Miller mean by “food is relational”?
3.
What
visuals or emotions come up for you when hearing the story of ‘Sky
Woman’? How does this story compare to other human origin stories-
what are the implications for the way we think about food and food
systems?
4.
How
do we make sense of, respect, and value traditional Indigenous
diets and contemporary foodways today? How do we bring together
understanding, and respect, and desire to keep alive traditions and
ancestral foods in the contemporary post-colonial world?
5. How does the term ‘foodways’ differ from ‘food systems’ in communicating peoples’ relationship with food?