Food has always been more than something to eat. For me, food is the medicine that nurtures us all. Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky: Modern Plant-Based Recipes Using Native American Ingredients (forthcoming from Hachette on August 29) is the story of eight plants that Native people gave to the world: corn, beans, squash, chiles, tomatoes, potatoes, vanilla, and cacao. Prior to 1492, these plants existed only in the Americas, and, I believe, are truly some of the most miraculous indigenous foods that originated on this continent. The traditional ecological knowledge surrounding their cultivation and preparation is both vast and extensive.
Now found in almost every cuisine all over the world, these “magic eight,” as I like to call them, have sustained Native American cultures for millennia. The foods and plants celebrated in this book were not only important in the past; they are crucial to the future. These food traditions are alive and vibrant, and their importance is realized by many different cultural groups that now share the Southwest.
I and Chef Walter Whitewater, with whom I creatively collaborate and cook at Red Mesa Cuisine, are passionate about cooking with ancestral Native American ingredients and educating people on the intersection of both food and culture. We believe food has a story of how it nurtured the ancestors and sustained generations, and these plants, including the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash), are integral to the foods we prepare for health and wellness at Red Mesa.
What Chef Walter and I have found is that many people want to incorporate more plants into their diets but were never taught how to cook them in new, fresh, and creative ways. We decided that we would work together on a plant-based cookbook with easy-to-follow, healthy, and modern as well as ancestral ways to prepare these nutritious plants. And so, each of the eight chapters in the forthcoming cookbook focuses on one of the magic eight plants, with recipes that range from savory to sweet, familiar to unexpected, and simple to complex.
Many people are unaware of the contribution Native people of the Americas have made to the foods they eat every day. In preparing these foods, we can revitalize everything associated with them. And when we feed people these sacred foods, we nurture them while still honoring the ancestors.
Here, in sharing a few recipes from the cookbook, we invite all of you to join us in celebrating these indigenous plants and to prepare some of the special dishes that feature them.
Recipes from Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky
Lois Ellen Frank
Lois Ellen Frank, PhD, is a Santa Fe–based chef, author, Native foods historian, culinary anthropologist, educator, photographer, and organic gardener. Her cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations won a James Beard Award, and she has spent over thirty years documenting and working with the foods and lifeways of Native American communities in the Southwest. Dr. Frank is the chef and owner of Red Mesa Cuisine, a catering company specializing in Indigenous cuisine and cultural education with a modern twist, where she cooks alongside Native American chef Walter Whitewater.
