American Indian Community House

American Indian Food’s Resurgence Starts by Acknowledging Its Past | Eater

"A community center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that served as the site for a free, multicourse “Takesgiving” meal and an alternative Thanksgiving celebration where chefs from the I-Collective turned donated ingredients into a public dinner highlighting indigenous foodways. The event showcased dishes made primarily from pre- and local-Colonial ingredients—examples included Navajo parched corn and squash soup, a niche blue-corn and bear-root plate with popped amaranth and smoked chokecherry, a Mexican sope called “Na Cano Blanco” stuffed with three-sisters succotash and topped with parched blue corn, amaranth, and crumbled ramen, and plates featuring duck confit tacos, sustainably foraged ramps, and squash purée—while ancestral songs, stories of seed repatriation, and discussions about food sovereignty and cultural erasure framed the meal. The space functioned not just to feed an overflowing crowd but to educate and provoke difficult conversations about colonization, land loss, and Indigenous resilience, amplifying female leadership and using food as a medium for political and cultural reclamation." - Suzanne Cope