Name: Jenn Snow
Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Education/background: University of Oklahoma/ Le Cordon Bleu
Business name (if applicable): Junebug Catering
Tribal affiliation: Ioway of Kansas and Nebraska, Prairie Band Pottawatomie descendant
What led to your passion for Indigenous foods?
I think just the education portion. So many non-Indigenous people have a “pan Indian” view of so much or our culture because they aren’t taught about it in school. The connotation is every Tribe lived in tipis, we all had horses, hunted buffalo, wore buckskin and ate Indian tacos. The only food that is deemed “Indigenous” is Indian tacos so my passion has always been teaching people about what we actually ate. Our diets were so clean and healthy.
Why do you think it’s important to make traditional foods accessible for Native people?
Because our traditional foods are healthy foods. I think that we need to eat how our ancestors ate because that is the food our systems are supposed to process
What is the importance of an Indigenous diet for a healthy lifestyle?
If you look at our foods everything was fresh, healthy, roasted. We did not have any processed foods, nothing fried, no processed fats.
What ways are you involved in the education, restoration and accessibility of traditional Native foods?
Our catering company primarily provides “pre-colonized” menus. We do cooking classes for several Tribes through the “Food is Medicine” programs. We teach cooking classes, food sovereignty classes and I will always speak on pre-colonized foods and cooking processes.
I am working on a brick and mortar food sovereignty store with Culture Hub in Oklahoma City where people can come and shop and purchase foods.
How can community members be involved and support the cause of restoring and protecting Indigenous food systems?
Again- starting with education. I will come speak and cook anywhere to help educate anyone on what we traditionally ate. So much information was not allowed to be passed down through removal. I think this is one of the most important things to learn about. Many of the classes I teach are through diabetes programs with several Tribes. We did not traditionally have diabetes, heart disease, or cancers. Our foods were clean and healthy. We need to eat our traditional foods and use our traditional cooking methods, and I firmly believe we could reverse the trend of diabetes and heart disease. No one is meant to eat processed foods that comes in a box. I am just really passionate about eating what we are supposed to eat and that can vary by region.
Is there anything else you want people to know?
Literally if anyone has any questions about food, cooking, recipes anything I will help. I will also travel pretty much anywhere to help educate on foods and cooking. I think too many people have this misconception that cooking is difficult and it truly is not. I want everyone to feel comfortable cooking food because that is how we are going to be healthy and have healthy futures.
I think that when we are talking about “Land Back” and “Language Back” we also need to be talking about “Food Back” because we need to have healthy community members. I believe that commodities was the government playing the long game and trying to eradicate us through unhealthy foods and we need to take our diets back and be the healthy nations we are meant to be and that our ancestors were.