Cooking with Yazzie the Chef

[Music] [Music] [Music] my name is Brian yahzee I'm Donette I'm currently residing in st. Paul Minnesota and today I'm here on behalf of the National Aboriginal Diabetes Association for a traditional feast luncheon I'm the youngest in the family out of eight siblings so when they are out playing doing what they do it aside that was stuck at home with my mom know the curiosity that brought me into the kitchen with her was the topping of the knife on the cutting board so I grew up in the community where access to healthy food wasn't the norm you know to me I didn't know anything about poverty or third world all the reservations in the way you know and but growing up and going to high school and learning to history books I realized that that wasn't going the norm that was the genocide the assimilation and were put in you know and learning from that and going to culinary school and learning from mentors like John Sherman bakka Claudia cerrado Andrew Rowan white and learning from these individuals and learning about their past and their history and the work that he do with food sovereignty I learned that not only the work that I do with indigenous food but it connects with the healthy I expect over indigenous food as well [Music] today we made a moose ribs so we slow cook that with birch syrup hominy and green onions what's the most ribs it was donated from a local hunter and so what's it being traditionally hunted and harvest you know what I did was I boiled the UM the ribs for about 20 to 30 minutes just to take out the hair and some of the excess fat what they listened to meet in the bones so after it has boiled I toss it into a slow cooker about two to three hours and in that slow cooker I put in hominy and green onions and some salt as well and just slow-cooked that and at the end right before serving I had on purchaser oh and I mix the birch syrup with the cup of the moose abroad know just to give it more flavor [Music] so the salad I made is a quinoa and spinach salad what the mixed berry vinaigrette and what's been overlooked a vinaigrette I made is a publicado oil salt maple and strawberries and blueberries but basically I pureed the the raw areas with which oil and maple vinegar is yet the massage and the dressing or vinegar because the texture is a bit strong when it's raw and not cooked so I end up massaging into the dressing to kind of loosen up the texture of the Greens so when you serve it it won't be you know want to fight the texture while eating one so sorry I mix in a massage see I'm dressing and afterwards I'm Mindi on the seeds and the quinoa [Music] we also did a roasted veg root veg for the vegetables we had butternut squash tournament sweet potatoes and carrots so we individually dice beyond the veg separately and then we mix in a mint in that salt and uhm angry and oil [Music] mana we met in 2008-2009 [Music] and she's been a big supporter of the work that I do you know and I'm blessed that she's able to travel with me [Music] my fiancee who might appall hello my name is juan mónaco I'm from San Carlos Apache and Navajo I am from winter here in California and now live in st. Paul Minnesota where I work at a koala Center in Minneapolis Minnesota it's a blessing to have a partner who's able to travel with me and have a passion for the work that I do which is rare which is unheard of definitely but um but I'm blessed that she's able to travel with me across Turtle Island and internationally you know and she helps me not only in the kitchen but also the administrative work with invoices in recipe building and talking about what type of menu that we provide to the certain community and just being the kitchen being hands on over and how to cook it and one of different techniques of smoking or drying made a while she was given a indigenous name I hope he named una mano which means I'm bear girl and hope you know so for me as a chef and being her partner I can't work with bear meat or in the type of time bear grease or anything to do a bear and we also did a Red Lake nation wild rice and bison meatballs meatballs one of me one of my go-to dish or an appetizer so I made that while I was still in Connery school in 2015 I went to my first dog into tribal Great Lakes food sovereignty which was at Lake Michigan with the autumn auto water truck you know and at the end of the event we do a inter tribal food tasting so all these chefs and cooks that show up for not event they end up doing a region but for me we now hope you know instead of just focusing on my who called you what I chose to do is is something I call intertribal foodways to where I use all ingredients across the Americas all pretty cool on determinants and use that creatively but still without you the foreign ingredients like chicken pork or beef or dairy or process why shouldn't you know so Darren at events when I have the first time I made on wild rice and bison meatball and I had dried cranberries in there as well sweetened with Tom maple you know being in the Midwest region had to use maple to Sweden you know it now the first time I made um bison meatballs [Music] so dessert is one of my go-to dish especially working with you it's just some fresh berries I'm plug up and mix with dog seeds and this time I had walnuts and sunflower seeds put feel experienced we use moist paper towels because a lot of the times we're prepping maybe a day ahead and a lot of these organic fruits and vegetables can dry out and we don't want that do I want it to still maintain some moisture and that flavor [Music] [Music] and we did a traditional indigenous team which is a sweet grass and I'll mix berries as well and we're swinging down with maple [Music] the sweetgrass a longer day guy you boil the sweeter gets from that plant so you don't need to add how much I'd show these ingredients based on the work that I do which into tribal food weights no I only not only don't focus on one region by a focus on the whole regions across the Americas and also make a different flavor as I came back from South America or Central America you know and I'm mixing that with the local grown organic spinach and adding in walnuts that's local as well within this area you know then using fresh berries which are indigenous to the Midwest area east coast and into Canada as well you know just marrying those ingredients and making that flavorful and creative as much as I can [Music] [Music] you so now we're going to feed our guests [Music] [Music] I like to thank you guys for having us again it's hard work we do a lot of traveling but the reward is no herring herring you speak and praying and the songs they provided and also connecting lately Jeff and association here and just knowing that we are doing something right who know we are all right path basically is getting back to our roots reintroducing our ancestral flavors and getting back to dudes heirloom seeds and ingredients that we have lost for it for so many years nothing just coming back to those flavor profiles and reintroducing those to our tribal communities [Music] and that is why food sovereignty is important to me and the work that I do [Music] the work that I do is need to travel foodways and when I'm in the kitchen I feel like I'm I'm in my own world and my own the zone and I call that cooking in two worlds because I put myself and our ancestors shoes hundreds of years ago and he was the modern techniques and the modern equipment and just cook another two words there wasn't that much representation of our indigenous food our indigenous ingredients survived colonization or manifest destiny oh if you look at these different cuisines across the world over 50% of those dishes are ingredients can be American no so where do we have just been overshadowed for so long by Americanized chef to where we have a place in a platform now so we can on Liam back these stories and these ancestral ingredients [Music] I like to take on Jeff in the association for it bringing us out here and with the hospitality and the blessing being able to to serve their community of Winnipeg and the First Nations in Miss Korea there's no fees that I would be able to [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 25 2019