Lucky for us, his new cookbookNew Native Kitchen: Celebrating Modern Recipes of the American Indiandoes exactly that.
My book is really an introduction to Native cuisine, he explains.
It celebrates each tribefrom Apache to Zuniwith culinary and cultural histories of the regions.
Simply Recipes / Chef Freddie Bitsoie / Alison Bickel
In addition to showing us the history of the cuisine, Bitsoie sets out to show us its future.
I recently talked with Bitsoie when he was back home in New Mexico.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Simply Recipes / Alison Bickel
First off, what do you prefer: Native food?
Native Americanalthough I usually bounce between terms because it varies throughout the country.
It depends how people accept certain terms.
Simply Recipes / Alison Bickel
For instance, Hopi blue corn is a tad different than Navajo blue corn.
I rarely use the term indigenous cuisine, because people move.
How did you get started cooking?
Growing up, my older brother played football and my older sister went to a private school in Phoenix.
So most Saturdays Id wake up and everyone would be gone.
Id be the only one home.
This was back in the day when you could stay home by yourself.
We lived in a really nice community where my mom would just tell the neighbors I was home.
I watched a lot of PBS cooking shows on Saturdays.
My mother’s a good cook but shes not on that level.
On TV, they were making these very elaborate dishes and I thought Id try it out.
I started cooking by taking meat out of the freezer and experimenting while nobody else was home.
I just put it in the oven.
I remember later that week my mom kept saying, I swore I had a chicken.
I don’t know where it went.
I had ruined it.
I wrapped it in two trash bags and threw it in the neighbor’s trash can.
Thats when I knew food was always going to be a part of my life.
Simply Recipes / Alison Bickel
What got you interested in Native cuisine, specifically?
He encouraged me to go to culinary school.
He said, Look.
This is all you’re writing about.
There’s something going on here.
Why don’t you take a look at how we view food?
It’ll get you to understand foodways from North America and how the migration of foods happened.
So, I left college when I was a senior and went to Scottsdale Culinary School in 2007.
A few years after culinary school I started training cooks in Native casinos.
I got to learn some of their food habits and foodways and just the way that they appreciate foods.
It was a lot of hands-on learning.
And what led you to write this cookbook?
The book was a labor of love, 10 years in the making.
Its written from a Native American point of viewfrom a Navajo point of view.
Theres nothing wrong with that.
I think it’s great.
Those are great learning resources as well.
But my book is really an introduction to Native cuisine.
This book also represents the future of Native food.
That’s why my book is called New Native Kitchen.
That’s where I see myself now, as kind of the progressive Native chef.
Do you feel responsible for maintaining Native traditions and being respectful to each tribe’s historical and cultural background?
I take that into consideration a lot.
I said, “Ill make a fish pozole, something Ive never tried before.”
It was kind of a combination between a French bouillabaisse and a pozole.
We were using salmon and prawns.
I can’t call that a Kwakwaka’wakw soup.
There’s no salmon in Mexico, so it can’t be.
Instead, Ill tell the story about the soup and where it came from.
How can non-Native cooks incorporate more indigenous ingredients in their home kitchens?
Sixty percent of the world’s ingredients come from the Western Hemisphere.
People don’t seem to know that.
Lately Native food has felt a little divisive.
For instance, I was caught using canned hominy one time and I was ostracized for that.
Native food is very practical.
It’s in every local market.
It’s in every major supermarket, and it’s in every organic food store.
What are some superstar ingredients in Native cuisine that you wish people knew better?
I wish people knew cholla budsthey have an asparagus flavor to them.
It grows on the cholla cactus.
They are harvested before the flowers blossom, around mid-April.
I grew up in Northern Arizona and I had never heard of cholla buds.
Some people from the Akimel O’odham tribe (or the Pima tribe) introduced cholla buds to me.
I use them a lot and incorporate them into a lot of different recipes.
I make a cholla bud pesto.
There is aco-op on the San Xavier Reservationthat sells them online.
It’s a really good product, and it benefits the tribe.
They gather them locally, and the money goes directly to the families.
It’s a springtime thing.
It’s available in April, but when you dry them, they last forever.
Last question: Whats your favorite recipe in your book?
The stewed chicken and golden tomatoes.
My grandmother always made a version of this recipe, and my mom always made a version, too.
Its their version of chicken cacciatore but thats not what they called it.
They probably didn’t know that’s what they were cooking.Remember those red cookbooks?
The cookbooks with the three-ring binders?
I used to thumb through those as a kid, and I came across this chicken.
Being that Im the professional chef, I added a lotthe bay leaf, the wine, etc.
I always told people when I have a book, they’re going to be my recipes.
I don’t serve people things I don’t eat.
These are flavors that I really enjoy.
