Indigenous chef seeks cultural authenticity

Rich Francis is on a journey to reinvent how people think about and interpret indigenous cuisine as it’s known today. 

The indigenous chef and food activist discussed the ways he is reviving authentic aboriginal cuisine and removing colonialism from the menu, when speaking at an Oct. 28 Arrell Food Summit event.

“What I specialize in is modern indigenous cuisine,” he said. “What that does is it takes a look at the social-economic factors that we deal with as indigenous people through indigenous foods.”

Why it matters: Colonial infrastructure removed indigenous people from their traditional food sources and gathering traditions, replacing them with non-traditional products including sugar and flour. 

Bertha Skye, the matriarch of Indigenous Canadian chefs, joined the Top Chef Canada Indigenous finalist for the fireside chat to help deconstruct the post-contact understanding of indigenous food.

Francis encourages the public is to unlearn everything they think they know about indigenous food and culture. Indian tacos and bannock are the results of colonialism, not traditional food gathering.

Indigenous dishes reflect on the social-economic impacts reflected in truth and reconciliation, decolonization, diabetes and obesity, and even extend to global warming, he said. 

“There’s a handful of indigenous chefs right now who are doing the real work that involves decolonization, carving out our culinary identity outside of cultural genocide,” Francis said. “Whether or not you’re a chef, harvester, a food collector, food gatherer or an ally, realign yourself with these core values that we carry with us.” 

Skye said food and memory are deeply interconnected. When she was in Europe competing in the 1992 World Culinary Olympics, she showcased indigenous food and the breadth of bounty Canada offers from coast to coast to coast. 

Her indigenous team won 11 medals, the most of any team, including the Grand Gold Medal. That win was a dream of hers when she started cooking at age 17 at the 500-student Prince Albert residential school. 

Canada has incredible food resources, but Skye said greed, rather than a desire to provide people with affordable food sources, has created food insecurities.

Inuit students who attend Sheridan or McMaster, where she teaches, would pay more than $5 for a can of pop on Baffin Island, a price unheard of in Ontario.

Although truth and reconciliation are constantly mentioned by politicians, there are still many indigenous communities without safe drinking water and food security, said Francis. In some areas, people pay $120 for a case of Mountain Dew because pop is cheaper than water.

“In 2021, what’s happening is nothing short of modern-day genocide,” Francis said. “A lot of my advocacy work has a lot to do with making traditional food more food secure.” 

He said the social-economic impacts that accompany indigenous food security would reflect lower addiction and suicide rates simply because they allow people to identify with something.

“When you start identifying more strongly with who you are, things become more secure.” 

Francis said when he moved from Northwest Territories to Six Nations, where he went to an off-reserve school, he felt the first disconnect to his food and culture. 

“I brought traditional foods to school. Kids will be kids, and it didn’t go over so well,” he said. “That’s when I lost my culture, my language. I was very ashamed of who I was as an indigenous person.”

He struggled through public school, high school and barely graduated from culinary school but said food, specifically indigenous food, saved his life more times than he cares to admit.

However, the pressure to conform to post-contact edicts was still there. 

During the finale of Top Chef, Francis said he was cooking for applause but also for a colonial palate, which “kind of backfired on me.” 

He began reconnecting himself to his roots, which allowed him to affect the indigenous community. 

That process prompted him to start the Seventh Fire Hospitality Group during the second phase of the pandemic and celebrate his traditional dishes featuring beluga whale and moose he harvested himself.

“That’s decolonization, it’s a process, it’s a verb, and it’s something that doesn’t really stop,” he said. “Ultimately, everything is rooted in tradition; all the groundwork has been done for us. Right now, it’s realigning our pieces to evolve into something positive.” 

Francis hasn’t asked for government money or permission to set up his work.

“These colonial infrastructures that are in place would give indigenous peoples a fine, jail or both (for traditional food gathering), but the Creator (through the pandemic) just had a way of saying it’s time to refocus,” Francis said. 

“It’s time to put plans into action to use my platform and to use my voice to change the whole paradigm of what indigenous food looks like. It’s freedom.”