Miles MorrisseauICT
Chloe White Deleary and her mother Amy White are selling more than food.
The Anishinaabe Kwe from Bkejwanong/Walpole Island First Nation are passionate about Indigenous food sovereignty and have taken that message out on the powwow trail.
“Part of cultural resurgence is self-sufficiency,” White-Deleary tells ICT. “We are trying to feed our people and we’re trying to be a healthy option for our people.”
During the 55th annual Kettle and Stoney Point Powwow, White Deleary had a food booth set up and was selling more than smoked fish sandwiches and sweetgrass lemonade, she was promoting a way of living.
“I’m here today at the beautiful Kettle and Stony Point pow wow. This is my booth, my business, I run it with my mom and our business name is called Ode’ mini Giizis Café,” White-Deleary says while serving up an iced cold raspberry sweetgrass lemonade . “We are an Anishinaabe cultural resurgence café.”
The pair grow and harvest much of the items that they sell at the café, online and at the powwow. They are based on the Bkejwanong/Walpole Island First Nation which is on the southern part of Lake Huron, just across the river from Algonac, MI.
“We like to incorporate things that our ancestors would have ate so for example today we have smoked fish sandwiches, wild rice and berries what else do we have? Oh, my mom she invented Raspberry sweetgrass iced tea,” she says. “We have strawberry drink we invented Anishinaabeg protein powerballs so we’re trying to have a cultural resurgence through food.”
The booth stays busy throughout the pow wow weekend with customers appreciating the cuisine and the message.
“One of the core principles of our business is food sovereignty and food security, we don’t like relying on these mega corporations,” White Deleary says. “We find it’s healthier for the individual and for the community if we all start to grow our own food again.”
The women opened a café on their First Nation but had to shut down the storefront while they build customers online and on the powwow trail. Most of their products including their coffee is available from their website.
The motto of their company is “Feeding the future through sovereignty, nourishment, sustainability.”
“We realize that it starts with us, so in our backyard we’re growing things like squash, strawberries, raspberries, pears, spices. We have to keep our people safe, we have to be self-sufficient right? And being self-sufficient is critical to food sovereignty; they go hand in hand.”
The goal is to create dishes that are locally sourced, contemporary and inspired by the traditional foods of the Anishinaabe people connecting the past with today’s plates.
“The raspberries come from our garden, the sweetgrass they came from our garden, and I hear the music so I gotta go,” she says, dancing back to her booth.
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