MOFAD is excited to invite you to participate in Indigenous Roots, a two-part online panel event and cooking demo exploring the crossroads of African American and Native American cuisine

Ubiquitous, but often overlooked, African American and Indigenous American foods are essential to the American experience. Ingredients such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolate are pantry staples the world over; and yet their historical significance is often glossed over or forgotten entirely. 

Join us on August 5th at 8pm EST for a virtual panel conversation led by Andi Murphy, host of the Toasted Sister Podcast, that will explore the intersections between these two cultures that came together out of necessity and created a truly American cuisine.

Continue the conversation with us on August 6th at 8pm EST for a cooking demo with Indigenous chefs Yusuf Bin-Rella, Elena Terry, and Dave Smoke-McCluskey. During this demo the chefs will be making:

• Piri Piri Shrimp with Celosia and Ute Mountain Blue Corn Grits

• Yellow Cornmeal Fried Okra

• Hominy Grits and Greens with Benne Seeds and Guinea Hog Cracklins

This event will celebrate ingenuity, resilience, sustainability, and finding beauty even in some unlikely places and circumstances. Please help us elevate the conversation around these incredible traditions in a double evening of celebration.  

* These events will be held over zoom from 8-9 PM EST on August 5th and August 6th, 2020. You will receive the zoom links via email on the day of the event.

TICKET PACKAGES:

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET for 8/5 ($15)

• Reserved ticket (aka your unique access link) for the August 5th virtual panel conversation

COOKING DEMO ON 8/6 ($15)

• Reserved ticket (aka your unique access link) for the August 6th online cooking demo

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET for 8/5 PANEL CONVERSATION + COOKING DEMO ON 8/6 ($25)

• Reserved ticket (aka your unique access zoom link) for the August 5th virtual panel conversation

• Reserved ticket (aka your unique access zoom link) for the August 6th virtual cooking demo

  *Please note you will receive TWO SEPARATE zoom links for access to the Aug 5 and Aug 6 events.

  *When purchasing tickets, please be careful to enter your correct email address for receiving your zoom link(s).

YUSUF BIN-RELLA

Chef Chef Yusuf Bin-Rella’s cooking career began with hopes of licking spoons and beaters of frosting. As a child, Yusuf was the only man allowed in the kitchen (due to his quiet nature and ability to finish tasks) and although his cooking curiosity grew from hedonistic impulses, he found that cooking, and the impact cuisine can have on culture, stuck with him. He knew early on that cooking was something he wanted to do when he grew up.

Now, Yusuf is a chef at University of Wisconsin, Madison’s Dejope Residence Hall (Dejope translates to “Four Lakes” in the native Ho-Chunk language) and at TradeRoots Culinary Collective, a group of Afro-culinary genealogists exploring lineage through food that Bin-Rella co-founded with Devon Hamilton and Candy Flowers. Originally developed for a trip to Africa for a documentary with culinary genealogist Michael Twitty, TradeRoots was named after the trade roots of the African diaspora and foodways, challenging us to understand the sources of our cultural cuisines.

ANDI MURPHY

Andi Murphy (Navajo) grew up on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. She is the creator, host and producer of the “Toasted Sister Podcast,” an award-winning show that documents the Native American Food Movement. She’s also freelance food writer and a producer with the Native America Calling radio program, a one-hour national radio show about Indigenous issues and topics.

She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her cats, Carrot and Lucifur.  

DAVE SMOKE-MCCLUSKEY

Mohawk Chef Dave Smoke-McCluskey is the owner of Local Pop Catering : A Local Chefs Collective and the ring leader of #cornmafia. He is an Indigenous Foods Educator as well as an incoming culinary teacher at a technical magnate school in Augusta, GA, with over 30 years in the hospitality industry. Chef promotes utilizing sustainable, local, historical, and regional ingredients from local and regional farms, as well as wild foraged foods and medicines.

Chef McCluskey has honed his skills with organic and local foods through involvement in his family’s varied ownership interests in health food stores, fine and casual dining restaurants as well as being a longtime member of Slow Food. Dave has been involved with promoting local and sustainable agriculture through his other long time membership to the Chef’s Collaborative and through his upbringing in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture with the belief that we should all have a connection and respect for “This Land on Turtle’s Back”. He is also an active forager, and he delights in getting outside looking for wild edibles with his son Finn.

ELENA TERRY

Elena Terry is the Food and Culinary Program Coordinator for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, where she runs the Indigenous Chef Mentorship Program. She is the Executive Chef/Founder of Wild Bearies nonprofit which works at strengthening community through Indigenous foods. She also is co-chef of Wild Roots, where she pairs up with Chef Yusuf Bin-Rella to create dishes that honor the integration of Indigenous and Afro-culinary flavors. Elena is a member of the Hocak Nation in Wisconsin and is a traditional foods and wild game specialist. She works closely with several Indigenous farms to grow ancestral ingredients, oversees the Wild Bearies garden and has partnerships with the Intertribal Agriculture Council, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Horticulture Dept, Seed to Kitchen, Rural Urban Flow and others where she advocates for and works towards organic growing and seed saving. 

8th Nation has been elevating underrepresented voices with curated events in NYC and beyond for over a decade. Mainly focusing on food justice issues and inclusivity in the business world has led to an incredible array of unique opportunities from running a weekend-long hackathon with This American Life to pivoting an entire in-person conference featuring Bill Mckibben to Zoom during COVID.

8th Nation is always seeking new challenges and new ways to express their passion by bringing people together to freely express and share ideas.

This program was funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.