FROM THE EDITORS: We share the transcript of the second episode of All My Relations, with the two hosts, Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene, who share with us honest conversations about identity, colonialism, territory, sex, art, food, motherhood, resistance, in short. On multiple issues of concern to indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in our common effort to advance decolonization. Thanks to a collaboration with All My Relations, this is the second translation into Spanish that we do in Awasqa.
SOURCE: To listen to the original episode in English:
MATIKA WILBUR: Hi, I’m Matika! I belong to the Swinomish and Tulalip community. I am a photographer and founder of Project 562.
ADRIENNE KEENE: And I’m Adrienne, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, an academic and editor of the Native Appropriations blog.
MATIKA: We present to you All my relations. We have a beautiful episode for you. It’s a vital topic for our stomachs and something we can all relate to. We need to eat. But how are we eating? Or rather, what are we eating? How did colonization interfere with the relationship with our culinary tradition?
ADRIENNE: For this reason, today’s discussion on food sovereignty is fundamental because we know that colonialism destroyed our food systems, sometimes intentionally and sometimes as a consequence of its colonial policies. And above all, separating us indigenous peoples from our traditional foods and crops was a very effective colonization tool.
MATIKA: Fortunately, we are now living in times of reunion and revitalization, and there are many people all over Turtle Island who are doing great work for food sovereignty. We invite you to listen to this conversation with Valerie Segrest about how food sovereignty is defined to learn how breastfeeding sustains the movement and how all of us can become, even if through small actions, food sovereignty activists.
ADRIENNE: Valerie is an indigenous nutrition educator who specializes in local and traditional foods. As part of the Muckleshoot indigenous people, she works for her community as coordinator of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project and also in management of the Traditional and Medicinal Food Program. In 2010, Valerie co-authored “Feeding the People, Feeding the Spirit: Revitalizing Northwest Coast Indigenous Food Culture.” Valerie holds a bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences from Bastyr University, and a master’s degree in environment and community from Antioch University. She is also a fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy [Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy] and wishes to inspire and inform others about the importance of eating a diet of high nutritional value through a sensible and culturally appropriate approach to food.
MATIKA: The concept that we are working on here in this presentation is that of the importance of understanding our relationships with others, or relationships with our territory and understanding how our identities are based primarily on our relationships. We would like you to introduce yourself in your traditional cultural way, perhaps mentioning your family or your clan, and if you could talk specifically about your goal as it relates to the All my relations concept.
VALERIE SEGREST: Okay. My name is Valerie Segrest. My father is Apache and Hessian from the Germanic peoples, and my mother has a long history, but she is Assiniboine Sioux and also Coast Salish, Swinomish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, Muckleshoot, you know how we are here in the Northwest, we are all related, we are related to everybody. Even presenting herself that way is a long story, as she was afoster kid. In her case it was a confidential adoption and the only person who had contact with her was Lona Wilbur, a close relative, and to be able to explain our family descent and our origin, and the deep connection to the family is actually very important to us. As well as the whole concept of All my relations and the fact of being able to participate here with you is very valuable.
And you have always been very close to me. When you were a student in photography school I lived 30 minutes south in Ventura, California. Therefore, we have always been close. But I think it’s the first time we’ve managed to have a professional conversation and work together, which is great.
My purpose really grew out of my connection to our ancestors. Trying to rediscover the identity that was systematically stolen from us, even in my family, by being given up for adoption and having to unravel an identity that was hidden from us for so long. Recognizing food as a great starting point was like a light that illuminated my purpose for being and in everything I have set out to accomplish. Well, that is my way of introducing myself and the reason why it is so important to be here with you today.
MATIKA: You know I’m so happy you’re here, Valerie, really, I’ve been following your work closely and yet we never see each other. So it’s great. I am really happy to have you here and see you in person, and also to learn more about your work. I feel it is very important and valuable in many ways to our people, and it has had a profound impact on our communities, so it is exciting to share all this work with others.
ADRIENNE: I think we can start with the most basic question, which is also a question that could take us a whole hour to address. What is food sovereignty? And why is it so important for indigenous communities?
VALERIE: Sure. If you google and look up what food sovereignty is you will see that La Via Campesina defines it as the inherent right of peoples to define their own food system. And there are many different ways to do this. I believe that for us in the Pacific Northwest, among indigenous peoples and communities, the term sovereignty has a different weight. This is mainly due to our way of being able to return to our original instructions. It is something our ancestors did by signing agreements and negotiating not only to cede our lands to non-indigenous people, but also to protect our rights to harvest our food and medicines, to be able to hunt and fish, to have access to clean water to drink, and to use our dreams as we have used them for 10,000 years, since the beginning of time. Sovereignty has a profound meaning. It is a way to heal. It is the medicine we need. And it is not simply something that exists. It is something we need to keep alive with daily actions. So, it can be something as simple as fishing or having a cup of tea, or choosing to defend our right to water. All this strengthens sovereignty and keeps it alive.
MATIKA: Can you tell us how you put food sovereignty into practice in your life?
VALERIE: Of course, it’s a question I get asked all the time. Well, when I started this job and I approached Hank Govan of Tulalip Village I said, I got it. People need to eat our traditional foods and use our traditional medicines and we will all heal that way. Then he looked at me like I was a child and told me that today our traditional crops are based KFC and Safeway and Albertsons [cadenas de comida rápida]. So how can we help our people to strengthen their sovereignty if we know that they are immersed in these kinds of food systems? Out of that came some basic principles on how to lead a life, i.e., how to eat traditional foods and lead a modern lifestyle. Which could be as simple as eating local food, right? In this way we would already be supporting the local economy. And we would be supporting local producers, and in particular, the fishermen of our villages, hunters and gatherers. We also know that traditional meals are composed of a single ingredient. To my knowledge there is no such thing as a river made of diet soda, or bushes made of Lucky Charms, they are simply not found in nature.
So remember, when you’re in a supermarket, take your ancestors with you. I think we have always longed for this, am I making decisions that would make my ancestors proud? Whether I choose to raise my voice or not, in which cases they would be proud of me, especially after all they sacrificed for us to be here today. It’s truly a miracle if you look at the historical trauma and how they didn’t want that to define us. But it is important to take it into account and move forward to leave that state of survival behind and start recognizing opportunities to heal ahead. And all this requires… innovating the way we make people visible and recognize the best we have at our disposal. Our ancestors were always innovative in using, for example, new technologies in innovative ways.
ADRIENNE: At the beginning of the program I was surprised to hear all the ways you connect and disconnect from your own identities as an indigenous person. In my case as an academic, and as someone who grew up far from her community, my research has allowed me to find a point of reconnection. I would love for you to tell us about your journey in this job, how it started. And how your research work was interwoven along the way.
VALERIE: My mother is much more than an adopted child. She is a retired woman who worked for the U.S. government and served in the military. And my father is retired from the U.S. Navy where he was a Chief Petty Officer. I mean, I spent literally my whole life, until about age 25, in the Department of Defense system. I grew up in the schools, in that culture, and almost oblivious to our own culture because we didn’t know where we were from and who we really were. And when my mom moved back to Washington state and retired, she took a job at the Chief Seattle Club. Two weeks passed. And she only knew her mother’s and father’s names…. So he put that data into the system. Her mother, Marilyn Purcell, had died when she was eight years old and was of Wilbur descent. But his father, Raymond Stryke, lived three blocks from his office in downtown Seattle in Pioneer Square which, in fact, was one of our traditional historic locations. There is a meaning, a whole narrative around that place. And since she met her father he entered our lives; exactly one year ago he died of liver disease. I spent that year with him, going from one doctor’s office to another, trying to help him and learning how the health care system worked for indigent men, and indigenous men on top of that. During that time he spent time telling me about our family in Montana, that they were traditional doctors and had a vast knowledge of food and traditions, and that he hoped I would take that experience with him and transfer it to my life.
In those days I was at a stage where I would call my mom and ask her why I couldn’t be like other moms and tell me I had to be a dentist or whatever, since I didn’t know what to do with my life. Finally, I decided to study nutrition. I spent some time working with the older people in Muckleshoot to learn about my family, what they did, who they were and what they had done there. All our ancestors had gone through adoption processes. So many of us returned to our origin at about the same time. Confronting us to find our identity and our place, with super significant results. Like medicine: it is right there at our fingertips, on the other side of the door. You go to the camassia meadows that have been there for about 10,000 years, or the fish in the river, the water that our ancestors have been managing since the dawn of time. It is medicine. For this reason I feel that what I do is partly selfish. Because I am learning more about myself, where I come from, as well as sharing with other people. And that is also medicine.
I’ve seen how many people express a deep feeling towards a simple cup of tea, because it’s like activating the memory of your DNA through the sense of taste, it’s activating all those receptors that have been waiting to receive that medicine for so long, see? You kind of wake up on the spot. That’s why I think it’s very important. And that’s exactly what the study of epigenetics is all about, our environment has changed and our DNA has responded to that, but if we use the best of what’s available, our DNA will respond to that.
MATIKA: There is a saying, I’m sure you’ve heard it, that our spirit is hungry. And my ancestors have told me, Matika, you behave as if your spirit is hungry, you need to return home and share ceremonial rites, eat traditional food and be surrounded by your people. And you need to feed yourself with the food that can only be found in these regions where your ancestors ate, but it is not only about the food in your stomach but the need to feed our minds and our hearts, we must feed them with music and the sounds of the oars on the water and the drums and the voices that harmonize. And once you feed yourself, you will stop being so hungry and angry [what they say hangry]. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Are there people who have talked to you about the same concept?
VALERIE: Absolutely. A very important part of that is also feeding other people. So that’s something that I would say, Hank Govan and [nombre ininteligible] did a great job of instilling in me, every time I would bring him some food or something, he would say, Oh, you’re feeding my Indian, you’ll be blessed. That is part of the reactivation of our system, to stop having this relationship with food as consumers only, where we go to the supermarket, and it is a transactional act, or just buying this blueberry to eat it alone. When you’re picking blueberries, you already know that part of the teaching is to take some to someone who is less fortunate than you, because they don’t have the time or the money or the ability to be able to get up and pick their own. But you open the door for people to share their experiences or memories with you, or give you a blessing. And that’s part of the design of being a good citizen, part of civic action: it’s transformational rather than transactional action and having new relationships with people, all thanks to food. And since you’re nurturing that spirit, it’s really beautiful.
MATIKA: Don’t you see? That is why the indigenous practice of potlatching [de dar regalos y distribuir la abundancia] is a much stronger economic system than the western one because with this system the noblest are the ones who prepare the table for the others and officiate as potlatch hosts.
VALERIE: It’s very different to be judged by your generosity, isn’t it? to be judged by the amount of wealth, money in dollars obtained.
MATIKA: Yes, Vy Hilbert once asked me when I was young and when I was coming of age, she asked me, well, if you want to know what your purpose is, you just have to ask yourself how you’re going to feed your people.
VALERIE: Oh, that’s so beautiful.
MATIKA: You know, and how are you going to split the table for them? It’s something that really stuck in my mind. My goal of spreading the table is through sharing stories and images and making them available to people so that we can learn about ourselves and see ourselves authentically. I think at this table, that we are all setting the table in different ways. But I love that concept, you know?
VALERIE: Yes. It is beautiful.
ADRIENNE: I know there has been work done in communities to study what happens to indigenous bodies when we eat traditional foods, just pre-contact foods, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. I think you’ve been involved in some of those projects and the ways in which ingestion of these foods and medications change our health outcomes.
VALERIE There are physical, mental and spiritual consequences according to this research. Basically, what happens according to Pueblo Food Experience is a good example of this, or Decolonizing Diets , conducted by Dr. Martin Reinhardt of Michigan. And it’s striking because in both cases, what they have in common is that they eat grasshoppers, which is something I don’t really feel like taking up. I am working on it. They happen to be an excellent source of protein and minerals. I believe that in our region clams are very good.
What they discovered is that after making a commitment to ingest those diets for a certain period of time, it seems to me that with Pueblo Food Experience it’s 90 days, the changes in health are very visible. They are reversing diabetes, lowering their blood pressure levels. They are losing weight like never before. So we know that our bodies respond very, very quickly to eating traditional foods. And it’s also a challenge, isn’t it? It is not that simple. We could not go back to traditional food-based eating overnight, there is not enough food in the system for all of us to provide for ourselves. And you’d probably suffer from a little bit of starvation and people when they come off a diet full of carbohydrates usually end up in the hospital, people really feel very bad. They call it the carbohydrate flu.
ADRIENNE: Yes, it’s not my favorite. Anyway, there are people who have felt these profound changes in health and were able to understand the scope it has on the mental and spiritual aspects, it’s like eating with your ancestors.
VALERIE: I don’t think it was measured in numbers, but there were definitely those who recounted experiences about how this led them to bond more with each other as they collaborated and chatted about food in different ways, refining and perfecting recipes that have been around for thousands of years. So they are really honoring this ancient tradition. I believe this has an impact on our lives. There are many studies that indicate that being in nature for 30 minutes reduces stress hormones, such as taking forest baths. The Japanese got it right. They did a comprehensive and I think very in-depth study where they established that when you are near trees your stress hormones are depleted. I know. But having this information is great. I am so eager to do it, I am passionate about cortisol, I really think it needs to be studied in more depth. It is a common denominator when you analyze historical trauma. And from there to understand that the remedy is to pray, meditate, breathe deeply and be outside in nature, all of which lowers our stress level. When we can be models of good stress management for our next generations, that’s when change will come about, that’s what will really impact health because we can have the most pristine diet in the world. But if we don’t manage our stress, it’s useless.
ADRIENNE: You mentioned the next generation in your previous answer and you are also a mother. I’d love to hear from you about ways you hope the future will be different for your daughter in these connections to traditional food.
VALERIE: I think the first time I thought about it was during my pregnancy, at about nine months. I was trying to stay calm because I knew there was a force growing in me that was going to change my life completely. And I’m still trying to get a handle on that. Nobody tells you about the tenth month of pregnancy, do they? which is when the feeding of this new being begins. Breastfeeding, for me, is another fundamental act of food sovereignty. I also had this enlightening moment when I was breastfeeding, I discovered while reading a report about how all the eggs we have are inside our being from birth. So at that time I was feeding my possible granddaughters or grandsons.
When I went to the doctor’s office I was told I weighed 12 pounds. And for the first year, the first six months, I exclusively breastfed him, which was extremely difficult. However, when I was in those moments I thought about how important it was to focus on her, my grandchildren, and try to keep positive and spiritual thinking while nurturing her. To feed the next generation, I think that’s our raison d’être; we’re not just here to see how we feed ourselves. I heard Winona LaDuke that if your goals are limited only to what you see throughout your life then your dreams are unambitious. That’s the way we were inherently designed, we make things change even though we’re never going to see the product of it but knowing that someone is going to benefit from it, six or seven generations down the road. This is how we conceive food sovereignty, by claiming livelihood systems with this magnitude of scope.
MATIKA: In your TED Talk you talk about your grandmother and a child, could you tell it? You talk about the boy but there is also another young man who talks about how he is going to grow wild cherries and apple trees.
VALERIE: I have always received such clear and subtle words of encouragement, and sometimes just when I needed it most. We set up an orchard at the Muckleshoot Tribal School and not only planted native apple trees and stuff, we also planted native plants and wild apple trees, for example. And we brought in some tree fruit specialists. And I arrived and I was standing on a pile of wood shavings surrounded by Muckleshoots boys and girls running around like wild Indians in the garden. They were so happy to be outdoors. During infancy they need to spend more time outside. Can you imagine? For 10,000 years our knowledge and learning system was a blueberry meadow or a camassia meadow. And now we are sitting in a classroom looking at a screen. And we wonder why behavioral problems arise in childhood, if when you take them outdoors they get involved. They understand everything that is going on, and deep learning takes place when learning takes place in these places.
A young man approached me and I asked him how is your day going? And he said, “Great, I just planted a wild apple tree that’s going to feed people long after I die. It’s going to live 500 years, it can live that long. That’s what I learned today.” And I thought, how wonderful, I can now retire happy. It was the best day of my life. They understand, they grasp everything. They see and understand very easily that what they are doing will represent a change that will transcend their lives.
MATIKA: How can people, myself, incorporate these ideas about food sovereignty into our lives, in small ways? You mentioned already about going to the supermarket with your ancestors. And I love this idea of feeding my grandsons and granddaughters. How can we really achieve this? What are the small steps we can take, however small, to start practicing some of these principles?
VALERIE: I think you hit the nail on the head, first of all, just take small steps, right? If we think of all the changes we could make in our lives, we can create panic attacks. Even starting by going out and harvesting something, like committing a year to just that, or choosing to become a good ally in the life of an edible plant. You know, I think of Billy Frank and salmon. And I think of my own teachers, Warren King George and the blueberry, how much he loves that plant. I think of seniors like Trudy Marcelli who care about camassia. So choose a plant and become a good ally in the life of an edible plant. And that will take you far.
For me, I think nettles changed my life. I think I wrote a really obnoxious article in Yes magazine about how nettle changed my life. And it was like a cup of tea and now I read it and I say, my god, Val. But it is true. About how those foods and plants are your best teachers and are waiting just outside the door. So you just have to pay attention to them and focus on them and they will do it, and deliver your life. They will take you where you want to go, you know, or where you need to go.
ADRIENNE: Ask your aunt?
MATIKA: Yes, it’s time to chat with aunt.
ADRIENNE: Well, we checked to see if they had online queries about food sovereignty, or if they have questions to ask Val. Let’s read some of them and see if you can briefly answer something to guide the people who wrote to us. One that I found very interesting is, what is the difference between defending traditional food and fighting against food deserts and food sovereignty? Is there a difference?
VALERIE: Ugh… food deserts. I will start by saying that this is a term that was created with a very good intention from the USDA [Departamento de Agricultura de Estados Unidos] to show that in certain places there were no food stores in a radius of less than 13 kilometers approximately. I grew up in Nevada, where the desert is beautiful. To me home means Nevada, home is the hills. And those food desert systems have fed us for a long time. Therefore, food sovereignty would be signaling that perhaps things are different. The defense of traditional food and food sovereignty for me are the same thing.
ADRIENNE: My colleague at Brown [University]Liz Hoover often talks about this so-called food desert and presents fascinating examples of times she has been in the desert with local people, and how they collect food from the cacti, the bushes, and how they are able to stock up on food because it’s something they’ve done since the beginning of time. It’s very interesting how these subtle shifts in focus are things we don’t contemplate. However, the phrase food desert has great power: it implies lack, lack of abundance; but if we talk to an indigenous person about the desert, for them the desert is a vital sustaining force, it implies all those food systems that are so different from the mass conception of what a food desert is.
VALERIE: Yes, this view of what the desert is comes from the settlers who first arrived from the west and did not manage to survive, some resorted to cannibalism. It’s called the Donner Expedition, look it up on the internet. And they didn’t know that they were surrounded by PaiutesyShoshones that fed very well in the desert.
ADRIENNE: Okay, another query that came to us via Twitter from a college-level student: how do you start implementing these food sovereignty practices when you’re in a college environment and you’re forced to consume what your dining hall provides?
VALERIE: Well, what I did was: every report, every assignment they gave me to do, I did it on food sovereignty. You can take the time to reflect on it when it is not within your reach to practice it in deeds. There are so many learning opportunities.
MATIKA: Sure, so even if you’re in the dining room and you’re not exactly eating indigenous food, you can work on other aspects. And then maybe, in other contexts within the university campus, maybe you can invite some expert. You can also promote meetings with indigenous food, such as a community table. You can also, if you want to raise your voice even more, you can demand that they offer indigenous meals for indigenous students to change some policies, because students have great power on the university campus. You can think about yourself and create the opportunity to exercise your sovereignty in your context and ask, claim or create opportunities for yourself that allow you to achieve eating what you consider best for you.
ADRIENNE: I’ve witnessed this with my students at Brown; being able to eat traditional foods and having the access to them is such a powerful way to combat homesickness of being away from home, there trying to insert yourself into a community, being mindful of why you’re there on campus, so you find constant opportunities, like, for example, using the hot griddle in the student center to make you a quick blue corn or having your parents or your aunts send you dehydrated fish or meat and you have get-togethers at the NAB where you eat all these homemade snacks and it provides such a powerful connection to home that it’s no longer just a time to go to the dining hall and eat my food.
ADRIENNE: This is like a quick round of questions.
MATIKA: You take a question out of the basket and you can answer, pass or think about it later, you start.
ADRIENNE: Stew or fried bread.
VALERIE: Stew.
MATIKA: Fried bread.
VALERIE: Stew. We need to decolonize your diet.
MATIKA: You had to say it.
ADRIENNE: Do you want to tell people why fry bread is not a traditional food?
VALERIE: Well we need to go back to the reference about getting diet sodas from rivers. Try going out into nature to harvest the ingredients for fry bread.
Yes, what are your favorite recipes? I really like rosehip jam. I am not sure what season it is from. But it’s so easy to do. You take the rosehip, take out the seeds, dry them, grind them and add apple juice or something similar and you make the best jam. And it’s all the vitamin C and iron you need in your day. It is a very good medicine for women. It purifies the blood, and is very easy to make.
MATIKA: And where is the fruit of the rose?
VALERIE: I love that you pointed to your hip [cadera y el fruto de la rosa se dicen «hip» en inglés] and tilted to show me your hip. That’s floral sexual reproduction for beginners. It is a wild rose that is pollinated and the ovary becomes fertile and expands, it is at this time of the year; all wild roses have now transformed and bear that fruit.
MATIKA: So rose hips are rose ovaries?
VALERIE: In most fruits, you’re eating your ovaries.
ADRIENNE: My question is what are some of the traditional foods that you’ve reconnected with? I think I am now a regular consumer of wild rice. I eat wild rice all the time, and I buy it from different indigenous communities. This way I make sure to support the people who continue to harvest it in the traditional way. I eat a lot of seafood on the East Coast, and I live in Rhode Island. So there are fresh oysters and clams, stuffing and mussels at our farmers market, which is amazing. And then on the Cherokee side , I got some Cherokee corn for the first time, which was very powerful like, hold the corn and say, wow, this is my heritage. These are heirloom seeds from my community, and they are beautiful, purple and white. So being able to build that connection through Cherokee foods is something I really want to build as well.
MATIKA: Traditional foods, Yes! You know, well, you know, I eat a lot of salmon, you know, because I’m from the northwest and we’re salmon people in many ways. I have recently become allergic to shellfish. And yes, you know, and in fact, I participated in Jamie’s town, you know, Jamie [apellido]. And she did that research in which she found that many of the reasons so many people are becoming allergic to shellfish is because of the buildup of toxins in the Northwest. And I’m one of those people, so before that, I think we ate a lot more seafood in my house and I’m very allergic. So I grew up going seafood fishing, right? So I can’t be on a shrimp boat anymore and I can’t go crabbing either, the last time I went crabbing with my brother, I wore gloves and a long sleeve shirt, but I still got welts all over my arm just from being on the crab boat. So it’s very sad for me because I’ve been doing that all my life. So it is very strange not to be able to be closer to the seafood. I recently had a burn, and I couldn’t be in the kitchen because we were cooking a lot of seafood, so it’s very sad for me not to be able to eat seafood anymore. But hey.
VALERIE: I think you should try seaweed too. Do you eat seaweed?
MATIKA: I’m referring to Trader Joe’s small package.
ADRIENNE: I had to order this ten-pound box from Maine, so I can send you some if you want. It came in a big box of seaweed and my partner thought what is that? I had doubts about seaweed, but I’m going to eat it.
MATIKA: That’s true. I don’t like seaweed often. I like them, but it’s not something I cook with.
VALERIE: I would. Yes! I am determined to solve your seafood situation. The wheels are turning. Yes, because you can’t accept it. Yes, we will fix it.
MATIKA: Your question.
ADRIENNE: Any traditional foods that you’ve reconnected with?
VALERIE: Well, right now, camassias are invading my dreams.
ADRIENNE: Can you tell people what camassias are?
VALERIE: Camassias are bulb-shaped roots, it was the second most traded item here in the Coast Salish Nation after salmon and there used to be camassia meadows from Canada to northern California. Today, less than 4% of these grasslands remain intact. We call it the I-5 corridor. It was like a pure area, you know, that was used to build a highway apparently. And then, unfortunately, we lost a lot of connection to that. But it was one of the only starches in our traditional diet, which was that less than 5% of the Coast Salish diet was actually carbohydrate or starch-based. And they only bloom for about two weeks a year. When they are in full growth, as when Lewis and Clark arrived in the valley of [nombre]. They thought they were seeing a body of water, but they were seeing camassia in full bloom because they are blue iris flowers. So, if you can imagine, I’m neither very good nor very bad at harvesting. I’m out there daydreaming all the time.
People were always busy digging as if they had been brought here through a glacier 10,000 years ago. And so our people were controlling these grasslands for 10,000 years. Today even they are not intact, I am getting calls from concerned citizens from Whidbey Island to Covington about these meadows and that there is only a little left and they are owned by private landowners who don’t really know the importance or impact of them. You know, the knowledge that people have around them diminished, so right now I’m very busy with this food; I feel it’s something that needs our focus and to be revitalized. And we just launched the Prairie Revival Project, which reminds you of CCR singing the blues. At the moment it is one of my favorite foods. But elk meat is a close second, it’s like my happy meal.
ADRIENNE: How is camassia prepared? Is it a root like a tuber?
VALERIE: It’s like a bulb. You can harvest them and clean them and you can freeze them and then roast them in the oven, but historically families would gather on the prairies, so there are lots of accounts about how Muckleshoot families would travel to the Nisqually area and harvest camassia two weeks out of the year. Families gathered in the meadows, began to harvest from the outside to the center.
And then they would dig this big earth oven and roast them for two days. It is necessary to have specialized knowledge and to know the exact odor they emit in order to know when to open the earth oven. That makes the cooking process perfect for the plant to produce inulin, which helps the body manage blood glucose. If you think about the anti-diabetic properties of the plant and its effect on… You have to work really hard to get some energy because carbohydrates are a very compact amount of energy, but you also have this beautiful balance of being able to maintain blood glucose levels while you process them so you don’t get too high like you do with potatoes or white flour, for example. It is a nice inclination and the energy it generates and it is quite a beautiful relationship with this beautiful plant. Even the creation story tells of a grandmother who gives her life and becomes a camassia bulb to feed her children, so even the creation story is beautiful. And if you think of glaciers, your grandmother is here as slowly moving across the land, changing the landscape. I love it. I could talk for five whole days about camassia, so these are the short answers.
ADRIENNE: That’s how we’re going to have to end our discussion today. Many thanks to our amazing guest Valerie Segrest for sharing her wisdom with us. And thank you for listening to us. We love it and are very happy they are here. Thanks to our amazing creative director and sound engineer, Teo Shantz, and our great production team for all their hard work and making this possible. Don’t forget to listen to our upcoming episode on native pets with Amanda Blackhorse and Dr. Stephanie Fryberg. If you liked this show and want more, go to our website at All My Relations podcast, relax and donate, or you can support us by giving us all your stars on iTunes and sharing the podcast with all your friends. Don’t forget to follow us on the All My Relations podcast Instagram. And we have also prepared a blog section to accompany this episode on our website, where you can find links to comment and contact us. Of course, you can also follow us personally. I’m on Twitter and Instagram as @NativeApprops and Matika can be found as @MatikaWilbur or @Project562. See you soon!