March 17, 2018
Camosun and Songhees cook together for reconciliation while fundraising for student scholarship fund at March 23 event.
From delicious wild salmon to flavourful stinging nettles and nutritious horsetail plants, the lands and seas around Victoria are ripe with ingredients used in traditional Indigenous cooking, notes Camosun anthropology instructor Nicole Kilburn.
Kilburn and her colleagues in the college’s anthropology, culinary arts and hospitality management departments are partnering with the Songhees Nation on March 23 to host an evening of Indigenous cuisine, culture and cooking for reconciliation with a focus on food sovereignty.
“We want people to understand that the locally sourced foods in these traditional territories are really an embodiment of the connection with the land,” said Kilburn. “We’ll be physically going out to connect with the landscape and forage many of the ingredients that we’ll serve on people’s plates.”
The event “Food Sovereignty and Reconciliation” celebrates Indigenous cuisine and culture and takes place on Friday, March 23, at 6 p.m. in the Songhees Wellness Centre in Esquimalt. It features award-winning Indigenous chef Richard Francis who has achieved national prominence with his work on reconciliation through cooking and his appearance on Top Chef Canada. The format is designed to be both engaging and educational.