‘ You are welcome, there is room’
In Tawâw, Enoch Cree chef Shane M. Chartrand charts his Alberta upbringing and unique culinary style
Astockpot steams on Nisga’a Elder Winnie Doolan’s stovetop. Within it, cubes of seal meat, carrot, celery, onion and potato simmer, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. In Gingolx, an Indigenous fishing village in Northern B.C.’S Nass River valley, the sea has provided for generations: Locals harvest crab, halibut, salmon, shellfish and snapper as well as seal, which they use to the fullest. Enoch Cree chef Shane M. Chartrand follows Doolan’s instruction as he helps prepare the seal meat stew, the recipe for which she learned from her mother: “Anything we do is handed down from my parents.”
The cooking session took place when Chartrand was in Prince Rupert filming an episode of Red Chef Revival, a six- part docuseries focusing on modern Indigenous cuisines. “We’re not taught to do things like this in culinary school,” he tells Doolan. “It means something.” As she separates the stew, serving the broth in a small bowl, the meat and vegetables on a plate, he makes a sure pronouncement: “That is an Indigenous dinner.”
Chartrand recounts the experience in a phone interview, emphasizing the sustainability of seal meat and the immense importance it holds for the coastal community, simultaneously highlighting the chasm between the meal he had in Gingolx and the “carnival food” sometimes associated with Indigenous cuisines. “I’m not against fry bread. I’m not against Indian tacos. I can’t be against it when it’s been a part of our culture for so, so, so long,” he says. “Who am I to tell the entire country of Canada that bannock, fry bread and Indian tacos are not us? I just think we need to dig way, way, way deeper.”
For the past 15 years, after learning he was originally from the Enoch Cree Nation in central Alberta, Chartrand has made it his mission to not just learn more about his home nation but others as well. This undertaking, accompanied by essays and more than 75 recipes, provided the inspiration for his debut cookbook, Tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine (House of Anansi, 2019; with Jennifer Cockrall-king).
At a year and a half, Chartrand was taken from his Plains Cree parents and put into foster care during the Sixties Scoop, which began in the late 1950s and continued into the 1980s. Adopted by a Métis father and Mi’kmaw- British mother when he was seven years old, he grew up close to the land on an Alberta acreage, unaware of which nation he was from until he met his biological family at 29. Now executive chef at SC Restaurant at River Cree Resort & Casino in Enoch, Alta., Chartrand has competed on Iron Chef Canada and Chopped Canada, and participated in Cook It Raw, a gathering of international chefs. In Tawâw, he shares recipes for home cooks and chefs requiring a range of skill level and ambition: A collection of competition dishes, including the striking and Gold Medal Plates award- winning “War Paint,” a photo of which is on the book’s cover; items from restaurant menus and events; and personal favourites drawing on his time spent cooking with others.
He describes his style of cooking, which was informed by an early passion for the “spirituality and beauty” of Japanese food, as “progressive”; dynamic, continually pushing onward. “It’s always moving, whether that be talking about me maybe reinventing some old Indigenous dishes or taking what I’ve learned from these nations and building dishes that I like,” he says. “There are so many ways of looking at things but, to me, progressive means ever-changing.”
Despite the close proximity of reserves to towns across the country, few who live nearby have ever spent time on one. As a result of this divide, knowledge of Indigenous cultures is limited, says Chartrand. “Most people who live close to a reserve know nothing about it. We all have different protocols, and we all have different food symposiums and belief systems,” he adds, saying his intent with the book was to give readers “a small little glimpse of who we are as people.”
The meaning of tawâw ( a Cree word pronounced taWOW) — there is room, you are welcome — is a further expression of this sentiment, says Chartrand: “You are welcome to be with me any time. My home is yours. My friendship is yours. My culture is yours.”
Excerpted from tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine, copyright © 2019 by Shane Mederic Chartrand and Jennifer Cockrall- King. Reproduced with permission from House of Anansi Press, Toronto. www. houseofanansi. com