Serving Up Indigenous Recipes Part 2: Visiting Tribal Communities

RMTLC team members Dyani Bingham and Cinda Ironmaker welcomed the CAF team with open arms to their home state, where they organized an in-depth tour of both the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Flathead Indian Reservation. As a result of this trip, CAF team members were able to better understand the challenges these communities were facing first-hand and hear from students that attend schools on the reservations. While visiting various school districts throughout the reservations, the team sampled Indigenous recipes and gathered feedback from students and staff. Additionally, RMTLC used grant dollars to purchase a variety of CAF’s School Food Institute courses and offered these resources to school food programs and local organizations free of charge. ​​By providing these courses, RMTLC hopes to build capacity within Tribal schools and Tribal Diabetes departments to address obesity prevention through a systems approach that takes into consideration food sovereignty issues, children’s health and parental and community involvement. Follow along as we share about our work on-the-ground and the progressive efforts taking place within these communities!

The Blackfeet Indian Reservation

After visiting FAST Blackfeet, the CAF & RMTLC team headed to Blackfeet Boarding Dorm, the only remaining Bureau of Indian Education dormitory in the United States. There are 32 kids that stay at this dormitory Monday through Friday while they attend Browning Public Schools. The entire district of Browning Public Schools is Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), meaning all students receive free meals. In addition to free meals at school, students that stay at the dormitory are provided breakfast, supper, and snack. The amazing cook behind these meals is Tonya White Grass, Lead Nutritionist at the Blackfeet Boarding Dorm, whom all the kids adore.

The next stop on the Blackfeet Reservation was Baab School, located just 10 miles away from the Canadian border. There, the team met with Lynn Keenan, Food Service Director for Browning Public Schools. Lynn mentioned that the closest grocery store to stock up on food from Baab is 165 miles away, so planning their menu ahead is extremely important. For lunch this day, they served a hearty tortilla soup and Chef Brandy made a Blue Corn Cornbread to go with it. Blue corn is a traditional Indigenous food and this dish connects many tribal students to their cultural heritage.

Co-founder of The People’s Food Sovereignty Program, Patrick Yawakie, met with the team in Polson and explained the parallels between processed foods that tribal communities had historically been served as rations when displaced from their homelands and similar meals that kids in the National School Lunch Program are fed. People Food Sovereignty Program is a local Indigenous-led grassroots nonprofit organization focused on increasing food security for the tribal community, and creating conservation and preservation efforts of resources from the tribe. “We know these processed foods are harmful to our bodies and don’t provide us the right nutrients to function well and that they especially impact our mental health,” said Patrick.

After visiting Arlee Public Schools, the RMTLC and CAF team toured the Arlee Community Development Corporation and learned about their efforts to support food sovereignty in the surrounding communities to Native and non-Native members. The Community Development Corporation shared that they grew tremendously during COVID by pivoting their efforts to food boxes and that they had a vested interest in advocating for healthy school food within the Arlee School District.

The Journey Ahead

Through this experience, The RMTLC and CAF team found that children within these communities really value their school food workers and that the cafeteria is truly the heart of these schools. Students look forward to the part of their day where they get to sit down and share a meal together and are extremely open to trying Indigenous recipes.

As a national community of school food professionals, we strive to ensure all children have access to nutritious food that nourishes their growing bodies—all while embracing diverse cultural customs and cuisines. In addition to offering these local schools and organizations School Food Institute courses, the RMTLC and CAF team also shared helpful resources such as scratch-cooked recipes on The Lunch Box. Through this on-the-ground work, we hope to build connections inter-tribally and frame children’s health issues in a way that showcases all the positive things that are happening such as the tremendous amount of advocacy work and innovation witnessed here on these reservations.

By supporting cultural differences through the Indigenous Recipes Project, we hope these efforts act as a catalyst for systemic change within school cafeterias. We are so grateful to both Bluestone Life and the Newman’s Own Foundation for supporting this initiative and moving the important work forward.