Decolonizing our Diet

Eva and Maite invite Claudia Serrato to join the show! Claudia is an Indigenous culinary anthropologist, a public scholar, a doctoral candidate, a professor of ethnic and food studies, and an Indigenous/Mesoamerican traditional plant based chef. Together they discuss the concept of decolonizing the diet and how one returns to cultural heritage foods. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Evil Longoria and I am and welcome
to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past
and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk about
the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
So make yourself at home. We are doing something different

(00:23):
this week. We've got a very special guest, Mike. Then
I have always had the action, We've had these conversations
a lot, but now we have a professional to guide
us through it exactly. We're so excited. So even I
were in Spain recently and eating cheese and drinking wine
and olive oil and celebrating all of these amazing foods.

(00:44):
And the last night that I was Zara walking to
a restaurant and we're like, okay, wait a minute, we're
in Spain. The colonizers and we took a step back
and we're like, okay, what is it. There's a larger
conversation about decolonizing the diet. Yeah, because we were eating
so many things that we were like, oh my god,
does come from this? And then we were like do

(01:07):
we celebrate it or are we shameful about it? Like
we were like, oh my gosh, you know the fact
that there's so much pork and vacca men in in
the Mexican diet. And you know, Mike and I are
paroled Mexicans, Like we are like whoa, but you know,
feeling guilty in in the colonizing country and at the

(01:29):
same time celebrating the food, right like we're like, this
is where this comes from, this is where this comes from.
And anyway, we just got into some territory we weren't
really comfortable with meaning we were we were like exploring
within our own emotional inventory of like how should we
feel about this? And so we have a really really
great guest today. Her name is Claudia. She's an indigenous

(01:53):
culinary anthropologist. She's a public scholar, she's a doctoral candidate.
She's a professor Ethnic and food studies, and an indigenous
meso American traditional plant based chef. This is like, I'm
so impressed, Claudia. You were born and raised in East
l A predominantly on a Mesoamerican sasson and diet, and

(02:19):
then at an early age she began to cook alongside
her elders and she gained all of this knowledge and
she's centered this knowledge in her academic studies and you're
the one that found her, might be. Cludia is amazing.
I've known Claudia for a few years now, and I
followed Claudia and we were talking about this decolonization. We're

(02:41):
proud Mexicans South Texans, but also Spanish backgrounds. When we
had this conversation, I was like Cloudia, Claudia's brilliant. Claudia
is the person to talk to. Welcome to the show,
Welcome to Hungary for history. Thank you, it's a pleasure
to be here. How did you even get interested in

(03:02):
this subject of like indigenous culinary anthropology that seems like
a hybrid of a of of a career. You know,
it definitely is a hybrid of a career, kid, You not,
I mean, and I think it's really it's a really
it's a testament to my identity, to be quite honest.
And you know, I've always cooked my whole life. I

(03:23):
don't know, like who I am without food. And you know,
it wasn't until I was in grad school. I was
working on my first Masters, and you know, I was
taking some Chikanda feminist courses and I came across Sherry
Modaga's work and she talked about it in an article
called Queer Aslan where she stated that Aslan was no
longer a mythological homeland, but was indeed flesh, skin and

(03:45):
bones that was under patriarchal, imperialist, capitalist United States, and
you know, we needed to liberate. And I remember thinking
to myself, Okay, my body is colonized, and so what
am I going to do to decolonize it? Am I
gonna liberate myself? How is my body at the last
front colonial, you know frontier? And I thought, oh, through

(04:08):
my mouth, through what I'm eating, And immediately it was
like day and night. I was like, I need to
liberate myself. Like and it's not just about the colonizing
my mind being open minded, learning histories that have been erased,
but it was like, I need to truly do the
work necessary to honor my you know, my ancestors, to

(04:29):
honor my family by remembering what they ate, what my
grandparents say, what my great grandparents say. And so that
just took me down the trajectory of you know, really
aligning myself to what it means to de colonize, you know,
my taste buds, my diet, the way I moved in
the world. And so with that being really invested in

(04:49):
Goldtura and ceremony. You know, I was able to merge
these worlds and ultimately really emphasize it in my work.
That's an azing So what does it mean to decolonize
your diet? Yeah? Um, but it can mean a big question, right, Yeah,
it's a huge question. Um. You know, when I was

(05:11):
asked this question maybe about fifteen years ago, I always
centered it from the meso American experience, Chicana experience, and
for me it was like immediately my first response was
always we need to get away from the colonizer foods.
And folks would ask me, well, what does that mean?
What do you mean the colonizer foods? What that means? McDonald?
That absolutely means Veggonald, but it also but it also

(05:35):
means right at the time, the way I understood it
was getting away from the foods that were introduced, so
like chicken, beef, pork, the sugar, the processed food, you know,
these particular animals and their byproducts. That was like the
way I was preparing food, I was, you know, eliminating
these foods. So I was really you know, looking for

(05:56):
what was tangibly accessible, that was native, So returning to
native food waste, remembering native food waste, particularly Meso American
food waste, and so I was like, wow, let's start.
Let's start by, you know, understanding what we mean by
standard American diet. Let's understand, you know, how the food

(06:16):
palate has changed, how it's become politicized. And so when
we're talking about the colonizing the diet, I've learned that
it is definitely decentering what we're told we have to eat,
but it also means returning to our cultural heritage foods,
right so and no longer being embarrassed. I know some
folks are like, oh, I don't need beings out unless

(06:36):
it's from home, you know, or or even then, I've
had mothers say to me, I'm eat the holes. You know.
They don't want to eat their beings. They don't want
to eat these food they're shamed. Right, So, the colonizing
the diet also has a lot to do with letting
go of that shame um and being proud of, you know,
our cultural heritage foods. When I was little, I tested

(06:57):
into a different school, so I had to be bussed
to the to the white school, and I remember getting
on the bus with my beIN taco and everybody had
a pop tart and I didn't. I had never seen
a pop tart before. I was like, oh, what's that?
And they were like what is that? And I was like,
we're in my neighborhood. Everybody a beIN taco. And I

(07:17):
remember going home and crying, begging my mom to buy
pop tarts and she's like, no, I'm not. But you
know how much popped arts or they're like four dollars
for a box, Like, I'm not, that's crazy, Yeah, but
it was. I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed exactly. Yeah,
I can relate to that, and you know, and so
now I definitely own it. Right, So now I go
around saying, yes I am, I am a free holera

(07:39):
and not just that, but I'm also a no pallettra. Right.
So I eat cactus. I'm proud of it. I'm not
ashamed of it, right. I don't put it to the side,
and I don't look at it as something inferior, because
I know it's not. You know, with with early colonialism,
when the Spanish first arrived, those were the ideas that
were instilled onto the indigenous people. They were told that
their food was inferior your food. Therefore they were inferior people,

(08:03):
and so folks didn't want to affiliate with that. They
wanted to feel superior, and so they wanted to eat
quote unquote the superior foods that the Spanish colonizers were eating,
and you know, and that trickles down to today's day
and age. I grew up, you know, in South Texas.
My parents were from Mexico, but I growing up in Laredo,

(08:25):
everybody spoke Spanish, So I didn't know what it meant
to be a minority until I was in college because
I wasn't. We were not allowed to speak English, we
were not allowed to go, you know, to McDonald's because
my mom was always like, that's not food, that's not real.
You know. Growing up, the border was so fluid. My grandparents,
my friends are across, lived lived across, so it was

(08:48):
it was sort of a very you know, different experience
that I never felt that shame of eating beans because
that's what everybody was doing. Yeah, but you know what's
my my my dad did not let us eat fast
food either, like it was. My mom on pay day,
which was once a month, would buy us a Domino's
pizza and we'd have to eat it before my dad

(09:11):
came home and hide the pizza box in my neighbor's
trash can because my dad was livid. And and we're
from the ranch where I'm also from South Texas, and
we would grow the food and my Dad's like, the
earth will give you what you need. And so if
it was Calabassa season, we had calabasa for months and
I was like, I, hey, Calabasa. And then it would

(09:31):
be watermelon season and it was like, oh my god,
I'm so tired of what but he he would grow.
You have to grow seasonally, and then we'd have to
pick it all the time, and I hated it. I
hated it. And now like, how is it expensive? Is
it to eat seasonally? You know? Like like, wait, this
is what I've been doing my whole life. Don't go

(09:52):
anywhere hungry for history will be right back. How do
you think that learning about our foods right about about
people about native foods help us treat people with more empathy?

(10:12):
I feel like, you know, one one we don't we
don't make that correlation right between people food land. But
I feel like if we begin to understand, you know,
these these cultural experiences. Then we understand the politics behind
why you know, there is migration, why folks are seeking asylum.

(10:34):
You know, people have been displaced because of capitalists food
endeavors that go and take over land. Again, this goes
back to those push and pool factors. It's very food centered,
and you know, to understand that folks are just trying
to survive here. And you know, it's not about taking resources.
It's about you know what, We've been displaced and we

(10:56):
need to survive. We need to eat, we need to
feed our families. And you know, I feel when we
begin to understand you know, the cultural food politics and
and issues around diet, then it allows us to to
be exactly that, to be understanding that this food system,
it's so deep and it's so intricate. I mean that

(11:17):
it truly affects people's lives and not just you know health,
not just through the body, not just through you know,
the spiritual and the mental, but like we're talking about
like you know, economically, we're talking about you know, sustainably.
Just learning about food really helps us understand people's migration
experiences and and why it even happens. Quinoa, right, like,

(11:38):
it became so populars quinoa quinoa, and you know the
fact that it's from Peru and it's a very native,
ancient grain that they've been using for thousands of years,
and that now the value chain or the food chain
that's happening is difficult, right because it's a native crop,
but because now the world wants it, because it's them

(11:59):
all that rising in popularity. It's hard. You know, there's
an increased production and now other countries are producing it,
and and now the because other countries are producing it,
like China and the UK, the prices and bedu have dropped,
and now small farmers are suffering. It's like a whole
freaking chain of events that happens behind exactly. Yeah, and
then for some of these communities in Padu, they can't

(12:22):
even afford the cost of what kin what is because
of the production and the demand. It really speaks to yes,
small farmers being pushed off and having to seek another
type of living because they can no longer farm their lands.
Even in Mexico right with the Contorta, most people have
this like crappy co ya that's filled with it's all

(12:44):
fillers and don't even have the real you know, niam
I have a question that I'm going to sound like
an idiot. It's the the question of the biggers I
have about decolonizing. Three of us live in southern California, right,
and the land is so rich. You know, I have
a lemon and an orange tree in my backyard. I

(13:06):
love to cook with olive oil. Should I not? Like
you know what I mean? It's like like, where is
the line? Yeah, you know, that's a really good question.
At one point I would have said, yes, we got
to get rid of all those foods, right. We need
to recenter these you know, these native foods. And the
reason for that is because my elder said to me, Claudia,
if we do not eat our cultural heritage foods, they're

(13:27):
gonna go away. And for me, I was like, oh,
this is a call to action. I need to eat
these foods because the foods need to know that I
want to eat them. The foods need to know that
I need them to survive because their survival is my survival.
And then working with you know, chefs from the Native
American Food Sovereignty movement, I've learned that there's a way
to indigenize some of these foods, like the lemon, right,

(13:50):
we give them a new purpose because they have become,
you know, part of our cultural sason. They become what
we've grown up with, right, Like we use a lot
of lemon and see throw and some of these foods
that are not particularly native, however, right we we gave
them a new purpose. And and again what's beautiful about
them is that these are not you know, processed foods.

(14:11):
These are not fake foods. Right. But I also feel that,
you know, part of you know, decolonizing and part of
doing this this food work responsibly is understanding what I
like to call the lesson. So it's an acronym for local, ecological, sustainable, seasonal, organic,
and native. When we do our best right to you know,

(14:31):
stick with those particular principles, then it allows us to
also align ourselves right with our natural ecology, align ourselves
with with what is available, you know, during these particular seasons,
because to be honest with you, certain foods that are seasonal,
they prepare it for the season to come. Like my
front yard right now, the raine just came down there.
It's covered were stinging nettle of you know, stinging nettle

(14:54):
is not native. However, I'm gonna consume it because it's
going to prepare my body for the spring, the flowers,
the blossoms, everything's gonna be happening. I'm gonna build my immunity.
I'm you know, it's gonna build so that I don't
get inflammation. And so, you know, there's really something beautiful about,
you know, finding the balance. And that's what I've been
told over and over again, you know, because balance equals ecology,

(15:18):
and and that's what's important here because ultimately, at the
end of the day, the work that we're doing here
and the way we eat and how we eat, it's
it's yes, it's about us, but it's also about the
generations to come. And that's why I do this work
because I constantly think about that, and I think about
what does this mean for me? You know, what is
my responsibility? Because I feel like the food has called

(15:40):
me to do this work. It said, okay, girl, you're
into it. So you know what, here you go now,
you know, turn this into medicina. Turned this into the
medicine for the people. Help them. Remember well, you know,
it's funny because that's the conversation might then I we're
having here in Spain. I'm in Spain right now, because
I'm shooting. But it's like should we not you know,

(16:01):
like should we not eat the pork chops? Should we
not celebrate harmony vedicle? And it's hard obviously to to
eat a decolonized diet entirely, but the knowledge that, like
you can tell some Mexicans today maybe pork pork wasn't
here before they came, and they were like, of course
it was. And you're like, no, no, you know, like

(16:22):
I said, we've always had pork. No, you know a
month away in the north, you know, all the beef
and it was like, you know, this was a vegetarian country,
like the whole country, Like they had maybe maybe foul
some foul maybe some you know, not chicken, turkeys and
some and some. Yeah. It was like yeah, it's very small.

(16:50):
But if you tell somebody from Monterrey there wasn't garten,
it like got it wasn't always here, they wouldn't believe
you wouldn't leave you because it got grand exactly. They do. Think.
It's just knowing what was that native diet like, and

(17:13):
and the benefits of that diet, like it was so
amazingly healthy to eat that way in indigenous times, and
and then again like you said, to celebrate and honor it.
So I went to the corn farmers in Wahaka and
and these corn farmers have a rainbow of corn and
purple and black and blue and green and and the

(17:33):
mixed and the this. And they said, because the US
only wants the white corn, all the other corns are
dying out. And I was heartbroken because if you go
there and you see it, you're like, I want a
purple tortilla. I want to reck tortia. I want the
flavor so different. Yeah, the nuances, the nuances of the

(17:54):
colors taste different, and it is we think that things
are going to be around forever, right, we think that
the purple card is going to be around forever. But
if you don't continue growing it and honoring it and
educating people about it and eating it, things do disappear.
Like there is this extinction that can happen if people

(18:15):
don't continue to grow and eat and and teach about
these foods. Yes, you know, And it goes back to
like the GMOs. It's a type of bioengineering that occurs,
and you know, it creates this this change. Right when
I think about GMOs, I think about it in terms
of how it reduces biodiversity. It's a different type of
ecological colonialism. And the same thing, right, the original form,

(18:39):
the original food way, it changes, it alters, it no
longer is what it was. And so when we stop
eating these cultural heritage foods because they're purple or red,
because they're not quote unquote white, our palates are becoming colonized.
You know, what we desire, what we crave right now,
it's colorized. And so to decolonize, right, it could also mean,

(19:02):
you know, how we decolonized Dorothea. It's perhaps no longer
eating the yellow and the white, but eating the blue
and the red, you know. And so there's just so
many intricate aspects to what it means to decolonize who.
I love that you talk, because you know, I do
a lot of advocacy for farm workers, and people go, oh,
were you a farm worker? And I go, no, I eat,

(19:26):
Like you know what I mean, why why do you
care so much? Would you a farm worker? No? I
care because I eat. If you eat, you should care
about farm workers. And I remember reading an article one time,
and I want to say, like bone a petite or
one of the one of the food and wine one
of those you know, fancy food magazines, and they were
comparing is it should you buy organic or not? And

(19:47):
they were doing the cost of organic and the cost
of a regular avocado, the cost of organic milk, the
cost and nobody factored in the human cost of not
having testa sides sprayed on a person. But they were like, oh, well,
not an organic avocado is three dollars, but really all

(20:07):
that means is like the skin. And nobody talked about
the humanity and the people who plant and pick and
produce our food. And I find there's a huge miscommunication
about that. And I feel like during COVID, you know,
farm workers were declared essential workers, and I said, they've
always been essential, always, Like we didn't, we didn't need

(20:30):
a pandemic to tell us farm workers are essential. Exactly, yes, exactly,
because there is this idea of disfoldable bodies and you know, no,
I'm sorry, you know, but that work. It's vital for
the survival of the food and for the survival of people.
Don't go anywhere hungry for history will be right back.

(20:58):
Do you think we're a lost cause you know what
I mean When you're like, where are they too far?
Gone like like, eventually we're gonna forget the corn toda
eventually or do you find there is a reclaiming Yeah,
you know, at one point I would have said, man, this,
this whole thing is a lost cause, you know, but
now a days, I honestly don't feel that way anymore.
I see, you know, folks awakening their taste buds and

(21:21):
their palates and their memories. Right, there's a desire, there's
a need to return to to understand, and I see it,
you know, even here in l A, you know, folks
are like, you know, how do we you know, decolonize
or how do we you know, go about in um,
you know, making our you know, Mexican traditional foods more
plant base. Right, So people are asking, people are curious,

(21:44):
and they're understanding the correlation between diet, food and health,
and people don't want to be sick, which is beautiful
and wonderful because that means, you know, folks are actually
doing what it takes. And and for some people it
does require learning how to plant, how to grow, but
for a large majority of people how to cook. Not
a lot of folks know how to cook. Nobody knows that,

(22:06):
No nobody knows what you know, so I feel, you know,
hopefully in my lifetime, that there's going to be a
shift because more and more folks ancestral, you know, memories
are going to be activated so that way they desire
more of what their grandparents, grandparents ate. I like that
You're so hopeful, cloud yet that this is we're not

(22:27):
a loss cost. It's that it's about educating. Yeah, right,
And to that end, like when you teach this course
in class and you talk about declalonizing the diet, what's
the response. I am, to be honest with you, I'm
really shocked because at the end of courses that are
truly emphasized food, and that's usually what I do. No

(22:48):
matter what the topic is, I always find a way
to connect it to food. I've had students cry to me.
I've had students talk to me how now they're bonding
with their parents or their mothers or their grandparents, they're
asking them questions about food. I've had friends that have
actually started food businesses by you know, centering their cultural
heritage foods and be very successful at it. I've also

(23:11):
had students returned to ceremony because it was the food
that guided them into ceremony. Spaces and ceremony circles. I've
also had students who changed their diets completely. I've had
even some that had were diabetic and they're like, miss,
you're not gonna believe this. You know, I'm no longer diabetic,
or you know what, I've lost over fifty pounds. And

(23:32):
you know, we we bump into each other in the community.
They're cooking, They're like, look, I'm making you know, oyster
mushroom pole. You know, thank you, It's delicious, you know.
And and so I've just been like, you know, we
we want, we need more courses like this because it's
really impacting students. And you know, to this day, I've

(23:53):
never had anyone say, oh, this was a waste of time,
or oh, you know, I'm just gonna continue eating my
food from the streets, you know, fast food, right, could
mean I totally support you know, street vendors and so forth,
because you know that's where the tackles are at. But no,
it's been it's been such you know, received with such
great success, and um, it's been very transformational, very transformed.

(24:16):
I'm sure, like I said, I would love to take
this class me too. It's amazing. I have a question
about the stinging nettles that you collected over the rain
and eat and are gonna eat? What are they and
what what are you making with them? Yeah? So do
I have them in my backyard? I don't know that,

(24:38):
you're most likely you do? Most likely? Yeah, So singing
nettle it's you know, quote unquote invasive weed and if
you touch it, it'll sting you, right, so it'll kind
of give you a little like like a little pika.
They're beautiful, bright, vibrant green. They have their their leaves
almost looked like feathers. So I'll make a batch of

(25:00):
tea so that way when the spring comes for allergies
and then was my live harvest, what I'll do is
I'll blanch them and I make pisto out of him.
So I usually make like a stinging nettle pesto, which
actually I'll be making in a few weeks at a
at a chefs table, I'll be offering a stinging nettle pesto.
And so that's one of my favorite dishes to make.

(25:22):
So whatever I can use, I just you know, throw
it in wherever you would use any kind of green,
any kind of leafy green. But you do have to
blanch it so that way you take the sting out
of it. Okay, Okay, so it's like a nice better green, Yes, okay,
I'm gonna look for them so good. That sounds so yeah. Um,

(25:46):
I'm just so fascinated by your line of work, and
I'm so I really applaud you because it is definitely
not easy, but I love that, you know what. I
always feel like like people are most productive when the
agenda is something totally outside of what you think it is. Right,
So you're like, I've got to save you know, the

(26:06):
indigenous ways and foods. Like you didn't go like I
want to lose weight. I wanna, Yeah, I I don't
want to spend so much under it, Like like the
motivation is really you know, about the survival of this
indigenous foods and ways and and so I just applaud
you for that because I can't be easy. But when

(26:27):
you have such a clear vision and intention, I guess
you know, makes it a little easier. Yeah. And you know,
the food itself, right, also is a carrier of this knowledge. Right,
It's something we call traditional ecological knowledge. These foods, you know,
let us know when to harvest, let us know what
season it is. It also lets us know, you know,

(26:48):
the importance of cosmology. They also, you know, remind us
of how to be in relation to one another, how
to how to grow together, how to be a community
of plants. And so for me, that's something I also
recognize an honor you know, in the food itself, because
I know that I'm gonna you know, consume this food,
and I'm therefore I'm going to embody that knowledge. And

(27:09):
that's something I truly give thanks for because for me,
you know, food is a carrier of the ancestral traditional knowledge,
and it teaches us a lot about you know, the ecology.
It's no botany, and it also allows us to explore
our recipes and create menus. And for me, these menus
become you know, quotices in the flesh, right, they become

(27:30):
stories of the food. And and for me, that's just
another element of how to preserve and you know, to
be able to continue to pass down this taste sasson
to the generations to come. Thank you, gar Yeah, this
has been so enlightening. Thank you so much for the
work that you do. Thank you for taking the time

(27:52):
to chat with us. This has been truly enlightening. And
we are cloudy. We're gonna share everybody, your info and
your handles with everybody because if they want to know
more about decolonizing the diet, like they really, look you up,
look up the work you're doing, and we want to
connect those dots for sure. So I appreciate that. So
great to have you on the show. Thank you, thank you,

(28:17):
and thank you all for listening to this very special episode.
It wasn't our normal recipe and ingredient show, but wow
was it good. Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment
production in partnership with I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For
more of your favorite shows, visit the I Heart Radio app,

(28:39):
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