Reviewer Rachel Jagareski Interviews Loretta Barrett Oden, Author of Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine
We’ve come a long way from our hunter-gatherer ancestors—and we’ve put on a few pounds to show for it, along with spikes in the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other ailments that are much more common to us moderners than our prehistoric kin. Of course, there are various causes for those health issues but changes in our diet surely play a big factor. So, while some people bristle at the food-be-thy-medicine mantra, we can all certainly agree that food can be thy poison, depending on what’s on your plate.
Lorretta Barrett Oden is with us today to talk about traditional Native American foods and how our Indigenous ancestors maintained a high level of physical and mental well-being through the foods they ate. She gets her cred from owning one of the nation’s best Indigenous restaurants, Corn Dance Cafe in Santa Fe, NM, and also because Loretta’s the author of one of our favorite cookbooks this year, Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine.
Rachel Jagareski reviewed the book in Foreword’s September/October issue, and a reviewer-author conversation was vine ripened and ready for harvesting.
Enjoy.
Your book emphasizes native ingredients and plant-centric recipes, and also features food as central to maintaining good health. Would you characterize your cooking style as healthy? Or some other term?
Healthy, Indigenous, Informative … so many of the ingredients that I use have a story, a history, a significance to/in our culture. Food is sacred, a gift from the Creator. Much is used in ceremony as well as in the nourishment of our bodies. Sage, for instance; I make a delicious sage pesto but we also burn sage in ceremony and in prayer.
What are some of your most cherished memories and recipes from the Corn Dance Cafe?
Wow! So many precious memories! My son, Clay, and I created the Corn Dance Cafe in a small adobe compound just off the plaza in Santa Fe. We opened quietly on New Year’s Eve—December 31st, 1993—having little to no restaurant experience and no idea how big a splash this little place would make. We hired an excellent staff, largely Native American young people going to school in Santa Fe or living in the surrounding pueblos. They were young, vibrant, and excited to be doing OUR food. We hit the ground running and it was a magical scene … in the front of the house, in the kitchen, and ultimately on our large patio … tipi, optional, and by reservation (strange word that) only. Much like a ballet, with everyone working together to create a stunning dining experience for our guests. We were a family and it was good. The food was, if I may say, inspired and very well received.
We did a lot of homework on top of my travels. So many great dishes coming from the creative minds of the whole team … but, mostly, my Clay. He was so talented it blew my mind what came out of that kitchen. Certainly the various plays on The Three Sisters (a relatively new term way back then). Corn, beans, and squash, colorful salads, and a fantastic sauté with sage-pinon pesto. Thinking back, and being from Oklahoma, we were fierce BBQ fans so we first created our sauce, rich and spicy, slightly sweet and as red as Oklahoma dirt. We then generously slathered it on our succulently tender, hickory-smoked, slow braised buffalo (bison) brisket (we Indians call ‘em buffalo), all piled high on our unique “alternative” fry bread. We now had to name this creation. The Little Big Pie was born. Named after one of our favorite movies, Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman. The Little Big Pies became regulars on our menu, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. I was catapulted into the limelight: The Today Show and Good Morning! America (albeit always on Thanksgiving!), then the budding Food Network, and invitations to create events and cook at places like The Mondavi Winery’s Great Chefs Series, COPIA, other venues in wine country and beyond. A lot happened very quickly.
By far the biggest chapter in your book is Beautiful Bowls, full of vibrantly colored soups and salads. Are these the most fun to prepare or is the comfort food factor to account for all these recipes?
Really, both. Certainly the comfort factor looms large but with the use of fresh, local, colorful vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers, the possibilities and combinations are endless. What fun to use the plate or the bowl as a palette for our delicious and healthy creations.
Sweet treats are one of life’s decadent pleasures and though there doesn’t appear to have been an extensive First American dessert tradition, I so enjoyed the creativity of your recipes for baked goods and desserts. What inspired you as you developed these dishes?
There is really sooo much sweetness in nature aside from the cane sugar that did not exist in the New World. The Americas North and South! A veritable treasure trove of every imaginable berry, exotic tree fruit, maple and birch syrups. The fruit of an orchid? Love telling that story! Then we add in the CHOCOLATE! with honey, add in some of that orchid vanilla, some berries, maybe prickly pear fruit or papaya … well, riches and richness beyond imagination!
You note that you have long been involved in a network of intertribal programs as a mentor, teacher, and food justice advocate. Can you elaborate about what kinds of projects you are working on now?
That started in Santa Fe, as well. Seeking the best ingredients, striving for natural and organic, led me, quite naturally, to the Native, non-Native as well, producers of ancient varieties of corn, heirloom beans, squashes, and other foodstuffs that have been grown by the Pueblo Peoples for thousands of years. A picture of the extensive trade routes began to emerge; foods from South America and Mexico making their way to the Pueblos of New Mexico; the amazing bounty of foods that traveled and were traded. I found macaws at a pueblo. their feathers used in the People’s regalia. Macaws? Yes, traded for turquoise. The stories and the foods. The farmers market was overflowing with crops I’d never experienced before. Huge plumes of Elephant Head Amaranth, their seeds and leaves both edible. Learning about foraging with tribal elders. Medicinal plants for teas and tinctures. Plant dyes. I had fallen into a wonderland of new knowledge to enrich what I had learned growing up in Oklahoma with my mom, my grandmothers, great grandmothers, and aunties.
Very early on The Intertribal Bison Cooperative was having meetings at my 2nd location at the Picuris Pueblo-owned Hotel Santa Fe. Numerous organizations were coming to the fore. Slow Food was formed in Italy and quickly became prominent in Santa Fe. Food people like Deborah Madison were leading the organic movement in town. I worked with a Taos-based non-profit for years and along with them, the Native American arm of Slow Food International was born. Slow Food Turtle Island is now its own entity on the world’s food scene. I am on the Founding Board of The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance with whom I traveled, cooked, and mentored. NAFSA, along with the Intertribal Agricultural Council, sponsored many amazing food summits at various tribes, mostly in the Great Lakes region (from whence my ancestors came) giving me opportunities to learn as well as to teach. We have traveled to Turin, Italy, with our own delegation to Slow Food International gatherings. It’s been an amazing experience.
It was good to read about how you embarked on adventures and career changes later in life. Do you have any advice for others setting out on new career paths?
Ha! I was over fifty when we opened that first little cafe in Santa Fe. Having been married since the age of fifteen and raising my boys to adulthood took a good many years. Years of joy and bliss. When I embarked on this new career path, I really had no idea where it would take me. I had no formal training in business—or, in cooking, for that matter—but when it came time to get serious about making a living, Clay and I took that leap of faith. His youth and enthusiasm were contagious and energized me.
After spending ten years in Santa Fe, then traveling extensively for a number of years, I, unexpectedly, turned eighty one this year and am still fully engaged in the business of food. I am the chef consultant for the Thirty Nine Restaurant located at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. I have just completed this first cookbook. All of this took me years, but here it is and I feel another book coming on strong!
The only advice I can give is to say that I could never have imagined I would be in the here and now doing what I am doing. I found something that, at first, intrigued me, but which over time became a passion. Through the hard work and long hours o’er these many years, I still have that passion for what I do. Keep your mind open to possibilities. They are out there no matter your age. I think it’s the work that has truly kept me young … ish! There is not a day that I do not learn something new about this world of food that I find myself in.
What sorts of ingredients are you researching and experimenting with now?
Interestingly, just this week, talking with the young Dine/Navajo farmer who is playing a huge role in the creation of our new teaching/kitchen garden at the museum, we were discussing what varieties of squash to plant. He asked if I had worked with cooking the leaves and stems of the squash plants. Now, I’ve certainly cooked my fair share of squash blossoms but never the other plant parts. Squash stems and leaves are prickly and itchy! I researched and, indeed, it is a thing! In Italy, the leaves, stems and curly tendrils are cooked into a soup called Tenerumi. These are also widely utilized in Asian cooking, as well. Who knew? This young man and his wife are brilliant and now this old gal is learning from the young ones. Exciting enough to keep me going.
Rachel Jagareski
