How Chef Andrea Murdoch Advocates for Indigenous Communities Through Food
by Andrea Murdoch
Opinions expressed in this articles do not necessarily represent the point of view of Best Served. In furtherance of bringing more voices to the table, we are committed to sharing varied thinking throughout the industry.
November is Native American Heritage Month and it feels more important than ever before in my life to be an advocate for my culture. To simultaneously be a student and a teacher. To listen more closely to Pachamama. To raise my voice and be heard when so many others are silenced. To be a defender and a protector. To be a messenger. A creative. A warrior.
As Indigenous people we all have our own roles to play in advocacy. We all have different gifts that can be used as a vehicle for sharing information. My Gods and ancestors gifted me with the ability to tell our stories through food. I believe that food is one of the best ways to engage in cultural exchange because it is a necessity for every human being. Everyone can agree on the fact that we all need food but it has yet to be equally accessible to all individuals.
Food sovereignty is an important subject in the Indigenous community because food has been used as a weapon against us for hundreds of years. Forced removal in North America was intended, in part, to cause a major disruption in agricultural practices leading to poor crop yield and eventually death. The mass killings of buffalo was intended to eliminate a significant food source for the plains tribes also with the intention that it would eventually lead to Indigenous peoples’ death. Government rations for those living on reservations does not resemble any of our pre-colonial food ways. Items such as processed cheeses, canned meats and other pre packaged foods contain too much fat, too much salt and too much sugar leading to serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes and more. All of this eventually leads to, say it with me class, death.
As an Indigenous chef, I feel like it is my responsibility to address food issues. I love teaching so I offer cooking classes for both adults and children. I teach participants about Indigenous foods, where they originated, how they can be used as medicine and how they can be used in various cooking applications. As an Indigenous woman, I run a fundraising event titled The Warrior Goddess Dinner to raise funds for the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center which specifically addresses and supports Indigenous women’s issues. As an advocate for wellness I take on speaking events to share my experiences with PTSD from my first marriage and some of my coping tools. A few of those tools include Indigenous spirituality and plant medicines. As a human relative in the natural world I leave tobacco and amaranth when foraging plant relatives to express thanks and gratitude. We only take what we need and leave the rest for others. A tobacco offering is traditional in North America; I sometimes leave amaranth as well just as my own offering as an Andina since it originated in the Andes.
Being an Indigenous chef also means a lot of fry bread questions. I sometimes compare fry bread to matzo bread in an attempt to draw parallels between one historic food to another, both with dark back stories but only one is taught regularly. In the Jewish culture, matzo is an unleavened bread born out of oppression. When fleeing their oppressors this bread could be made quickly and cooked on hot rocks. Fry bread is the result of government rations. Wheat flour is a European crop that was distributed during the forced removal so Indigenous people made dough, fried it and topped it with whatever was available. The world of Indigenous foods is complex and expansive but almost every non-native brings up fry bread when discussing Indigenous foods with me.
Food knowledge matters. Where it originated, how it got here, how we use it, how we grow it, how we source it and so on. Think about how different the American continents are in terms of climate and terroir. My Alaskan and Pacific NorthWest Indigenous friends love salmon. It is one of their most important original foods. My Mexican Indigenous friends love their nopales in any way it can be prepared. My plains tribe friends love bison. As an Andina, I can’t get enough of potatoes and grains like quinoa and amaranth. All three of those crops originated in the Andes of South America, my birth lands.
We carry a heavy weight with us. We carry the weight of our ancestors, knowing that we are their wildest dreams come to life. We are the descendants who are meant to continue our ancestors’ work. November may be Native American Heritage Month but it is our responsibility to advocate for our own culture, existence, and livelihood every month and every day outside of November as well.
Photo credit: Sarah Boyum 5280 Magazine
Chef Andrea Murdoch is an Andean Native born in Caracas Venezuela. Murdoch is using food to trace her own culture while educating the public about the expansive world of Indigenous food systems. After being classically trained as a pastry chef at The Culinary Institute of America, Murdoch started exploring Indigenous flavors and origins independently for her business Four Directions Cuisine, LLC which launched in Denver, CO November 2017.
The four main pillars of her business are sourcing locally, sourcing Indigenously, education and community work. In Murdoch’s interpretation of Indigenous cuisine, she starts cultural conversations and serves up her personal experiences in the form of food.
