Holiday Guilt Trip: WashPost Promotes Native American Take on 'Hatesgiving' Food

Newsbusters.org ^ | November 25, 2017 | Tim Graham

[Kaslin]

On Thanksgiving, Washington Post readers turned to the front page of the Style section for the annual “Native American” lecture on “Hatesgiving.” It was a food article by Maura Judkis. The online headline was “Native American chefs lament 'Columbusing'of indigenous foods.” Judkis began:

Earlier this fall, Karlos Baca, an indigenous food activist known for cooking beautiful foraged meals using traditional Native American ingredients and cooking methods, was approached by a regional food magazine: Would he like to provide a recipe for their Thanksgiving issue?

"Instead of getting a recipe from me, they got three pages of activism," he says. Baca, along with some other Native Americans who see the holiday as whitewashing the harm colonists did to indigenous people, refers to it as "Takesgiving" or "Hatesgiving." Typically, he won't participate in the dinner: "I have a tradition of fasting," he says.

“Foodies” looking for the next hot culinary trend are beginning to seize on the Native American foods. But wait, even the term “Native American” is an insult! The guilt trip is never ending! You must always feel the need to apologize for the wrongs of Miles Standish! Or General Custer!

Thinking of Native American food as a trend perpetuates a number of misguided notions: first, that Native American food is a monolithic thing. The food of our nation's indigenous people -- some, like Baca, do not like the term "Native American," because his ancestors predate the naming of America -- is as diverse as the country's 567 federally recognized Native American nations. Outsiders tend to think of them in the aggregate, noting fry bread, a fried dough with various toppings, as one food that many share. Around Thanksgiving, one of the few times that schools teach students about Native Americans, many include fry bread as part of the curriculum.

But Baca, [Sean] Sherman and other chefs reject fry bread, which they see as a symbol of resilience under colonial oppression. The fried dough recipe, Sherman writes in his recently released cookbook, "The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen," is the product of the government commodities that Native Americans were given during their forced migration, which separated tribes from their traditional foods. Baca and Sherman are among the Native American chefs who serve "decolonized" meals, prepared with no pork, beef, dairy, processed cane sugar or wheat flour, ingredients that Europeans introduced into native diets. Avoiding these ingredients is also healthier, they say.

The colonists "purposely destroyed food systems, first as a means of control, and the aftermath of it is horrendous," says Sherman, noting that Native Americans have an average life expectancy four years shorter than all other races and ethnicities in America. According to the Indian Health Service, they also die at higher rates than other Americans of such ailments as liver disease and diabetes.

Earth to the WashPost: Those destroyed livers are probably due to high rates of alcoholism, not food intake. Then comes the lecture on “Columbusing,” a form of busing they don’t like:

Native American diets "have been here for a long time, whereas the Paleo diet was designed as a food trend," says Sherman, scoffing at the idea of "Captain Caveman's diet."

And reducing a deeply spiritual food culture to its trend potential or its nutritive value is another example of a phenomenon called "Columbusing" - the practice among white people of acting as if something created by people of color didn't exist until they took note of it, like the intrepid explorer who "discovered" America, where indigenous people had been living for centuries. This happens frequently to food that becomes suddenly trendy: pho, collard greens and matcha have all been Columbused in the past year, becoming the domain of bearded white chefs with full-sleeve tattoos. And now, Native American food is going through the same thing.

"I've seen some pop-up restaurant start-ups start to come around where nonnative people are trying to do Native American food," says Sherman. "And we had a conversation with them - 'You know, you can do whatever you want to do, but if you call your food Native American food and you don't even have any native people on your staff, then it's completely cultural appropriation.' "

Somehow, this story doesn’t include the fact that The Washington Post should be using a Native American reporter on this story instead of letting a painfully white lady do it. Judkis offered a soupcon of balance, from chefs that don't believe hammering the white people is an effective public-relations strategy. The ending is precious, as well. Thanksgiving is a “sore spot, but an entry point” for lectures about American Indian cooking. "Even though Thanksgiving is the biggest lie in American history," one chef says, "it's a lie told over dinner."

Judkis was oddly upset that the white people insulted in this article were not offering up breast-beating responses of guilt on Twitter. This was her original tweet: 

Happy Thanksgiving! The latest victims of food Columbusing are Native Americans - who were *literally* Columbused. Food media have deemed Native American food trendy, and compared it to the Paleo diet. Indigenous people have mixed feelings about that. https://t.co/WHm1gPrMD1 — Maura Judkis (@MauraJudkis) November 22, 2017

She chided one critic for not displaying the "spirit of Thanksgiving"....as if her "whites ruined America with Hatesgiving" was in the spirit of Thanksgiving? 

Some whites were gentler in their embattled response: 

[HLPhat]

Who ate the Anasazi?

https://www.google.com/search?q=anasazi+cannibalism

Hint: It wasn’t Christopher Columbus

[Jamestown1630]

I’m a native American, cuz I was born here. I proclaim everything I eat to be Native American Food.

[a fool in paradise]

He should only share his recopies and manifestos using indigenous means. No written word and sure as hell no typeset publications or inner-net.

[KarlInOhio]

they also die at higher rates than other Americans of such ailments as liver disease and diabetes.

The two main causes of liver disease are hepatitis and alcoholism, so please lay off the firewater.

[Reno89519]

So, for some it was Columbus Day, now Thanksgiving, and next to be Washington’s birthday (which we’ve mostly lost)? Erasing the US and our history is an evil that must be stopped and reversed. Much like taking back Christmas, Trump needs to use his bully pulpit to defend American traditions.

[factoryrat]

Hunting, gathering, foraging, starving, and cannibalism.

What isn’t to like about the native pre-columbus diet?

[Riley]

The crazy left is marginalizing itself out of existence. Hopefully, they’ll pick up the pace.

[BenLurkin]

Those clowns need to get a life.

[sargon]

[Native Americans] also die at higher rates than other Americans of such ailments as liver disease...

Gee, I wonder what could cause that?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Earlier this fall, Karlos Baca, an indigenous food activist known for cooking beautiful foraged meals using traditional Native American ingredients and cooking methods,***

Yummy!
http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/amerindians.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=5wGpZagXWlsC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=california%20indians%20eating%20pulverized%20earthworms&source=bl&ots=V8SZlqG0PS&sig=392B0XFCWVsQtVO96MZwtOy_-n0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm1bjA7YHWAhUI32MKHbAHAcwQ6AEIQzAH#v=onepage&q=california%20indians%20eating%20pulverized%20earthworms&f=false

Fly maggots, toads, snails, minnows, crickets, wood rats, squirrels, snakes, rabbits, deer, wild goats, EARTHWORMS, grasshoppers, Caterpillars, skunks, fish, shellfish, dog.

When was the last time you heard of any Indigenous Peoples of the Americas eating this!

[Last Dakotan]

The author has a good point. We should go back to the Federal Native government records of 500-1000 years ago and check what the recorded Native lifespan was was.

Should be easy - they might be on microfilm. No wait...

[Leep]

There was a short article about indigenous people in the Nat. GEO.
Every single picture of the indigenous people were wearing Wal-Mart clothe.

[elteemike]

I was born in America of two natural born US citizens, so I’m as “native” as any of the self-styled “indigenous” or whatever the term du jour they’ve chosen to separate themselves from other natives of European ancestry...

Whenever I’m asked, I designate myself as native American...

Like you, anything I eat, say, do is Native American, and I observe my native customs on Thanksgiving...Such as giving thanks to God for this great nation and land we have, and this year especially giving thanks to Him that DJT is POTUS and not the harpie from Chappequa...

[chuckee]

” some, like Baca, do not like the term “Native American,” because his ancestors predate the naming of America “

I thought Native American was the politically correct sequel to Indians.I have an idea. Why don’t we call them redskins if Washington does not mind licensing the rights to the name with them. Oh, that’s right, they don’t like that one either or anglos doing the sacred tomahawk chop at Braves games. Indigenous people (the jury is out on that name too) can be quite the diva.

[samtheman]

The liberals who read the compost and take it seriously subsist intellectually on a diet of maggots.

[Architect of Avalon]

I dedicate my next piece of tasty cornbread to the Pilgrims.

Thanks Pilgrims!

Rock on!

[Kaslin]

How do you come up with the word Anasazi? as it is not in the article

[Kaslin]

They sure do.

[vpintheak]

The left simply cannot abide Christianity. That is all there is to it. It stands in the way of their utopia by freeing the individual from the tyranny of man.