Indigenous communities around the U.S. have long sustained their unique relationships to culture, land, and one another through food. As part of our Chewing the Fat series, the YSFP invited Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, Associate Professor at Brown University, to speak more about her research on indigenous foodways.
After recording a podcast with YSFP student Amy Zhang ’21, we hosted Dr. Hoover for lunch on the Yale Farm with Yale students and staff (thank you to Sanctuary Kitchen for catering!). The group gathered also to workshop a chapter from her forthcoming book, From “Garden Warriors” to Good Seeds: Indigenizing the Local Food Movement (University of Minnesota Press). In particular, students explored the relationship between food and gender norms through terms like “rematriation”, and asked questions on how climate change affects indigenous food systems and ways of living.
That afternoon, Dr. Hoover began her widely attended public lecture with stories of road trips; for years, she’d driven around the U.S. to meet with various native tribes and communities. Through these travels, she’d documented their seedsaving, farming and other cultural practices, explaining how stewarding seeds has transformative implications for food sovereignty. Seeds, after all, were gifts: they offered both biological and spiritual nourishment to people. YSFP Deja Chappell ’21 moderated the conversation that followed.
The Native American Cultural Center (NACC) hosted Dr. Hoover for a dinner with NACC students and community members. Along with other NACC student staff, YSFP-NACC liaison Catherine Webb ‘22 prepared buffalo creek squash soup, a hominy-bean salad, and sunflower seed cookies. The recipes were inspired by chef Sean Sherman’s Sioux Chef cookbook.
Elizabeth’s visit was co-sponsored by the Native American Cultural Center and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.
Photography by Addee Kim ‘22.