Food sovereignty is a movement growing from the ground up, from farmers, ranchers, indigenous peoples and all people of Earth effected by the ever-growing problems of sustainability brought by hunger and poverty. Food sovereignty means, “people have enough food to meet their needs.”
Do you have any final reflections before the episode airs?
In my learning about Indigenous Food Sovereignty, I learned about differences in culture and tradition. We learned from Valerie Segrest that frybread is a cultural food. It was invented by the native ancestors brought about by the governmental ration of food given as commodities. Frybread was a survival food, and today we celebrate it. We celebrate what our ancestors went through.
I heard a story about a grandmother who raised these little grandchildren and on every holiday the grandmother would cook a big ham in a small square pan. The grandmother would try to fit all of the ham into the pan and many times wasted some of it in the making. The grandchildren grew up and continued their grandma’s legacy of making a huge ham in a small square pan.
It was later they found out the reason their grandma used the square pan during the holidays was because it was all she had. She didn’t have a big pan to cook the ham and the grandchildren grew up thinking it was a tradition, but because of circumstances it was a cultural thing. The grandmother couldn’t afford a bigger pan.
These are stories we heard along our journey and I remember stories like this.
My family and I have gotten involved with the Restoring Shoshone Ancestral Foods. This weekend we are going to learn recipes and we will be harvesting pine nuts from the cone. Over the summer we learned many great things about the foods of indigenous people. We even learned that chokecherry gravy ground up with the pits is a medicinal food. There was a story about a grade school student doing an experiment where she put chokecherries with the pit ground up on cancer cells and it killed them.
I learned that these healthy ways of eating with the understanding that food is outside our back doors has been a lesson that one must to be careful with. We can’t just start eating ANY plant without knowing what it is. Some plants are toxic if consumed in large amounts or may even be poisonous. Learning about the indigenous plants of my area continues to be a great interest in my involvement.
I thank all the people with the making of Farm to Fork: Food Sovereignty in Indian Country. I thank all those involved with the making of this, without you it would not be possible. I thank Wyoming PBS and their crew. I thank and I love you Stefani Smith, Wyoming PBS Producer.
A special, free screening of the episode will be hosted on the Central Wyoming College campus tonight, Friday, November 15, 2019, from 5:30PM-7:30PM in the CWC Little Theater. Come early for home made Indian Tacos and stay for the show!