As the days fill with crisp air and gorgeous foliage, the longer nights are spent with good books–something we love to do here at the library. Whether you’re spending your fall cozied up on the couch with books or outside in nature, we’ve highlighted some great books on food, harvest and land for you to read this Autumn season.
Living on the Land: Indigenous Women’s Understanding of Place edited by Nathalie Kermoal and Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez looks at how patriarchy, gender, and colonialism shape the experiences of Indigenous women as both knowledge holders and knowledge producers. Different writers explore the nature and scope of Indigenous women’s knowledge, how knowledge is rootedness in relationships both human and spiritual, and how knowledge is not inseparable from land and landscape.
Land-Based Education: Embracing the Rhythms of the Earth from an Indigenous Perspective by Herman J. Michell, PhD explores two different land-based educators insights and experiences on connecting learning to the land and environment.
Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America by Nancy J. Turner creates and explains a complex understanding of the traditions of use and management of plant resource throughout North America.
Downstream: Reimagining Water edited by Dorothy Christian and Rita Wong showcases artists, writers, scientists, scholars, environmentalists, and activists who examine the shared human need for clean water that is crucial to building peace and good relationships with each other and the planet.
Food will Win the War: the Politics, Culture, and Science of Food on Canada’s Home Front by Ian Mosby looks at the symbolic and material transforming that food and eating undertook in Canada during the 1940s and those transformations through a profound social, political, and cultural lens.
Food sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems edited by Hannah Wittman, Annette Desmarais, Nettie Wiebe explores how Canadian agricultural and food policies are contributing to the current global food crisis and community responses to those policies.
Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience by Enrique Salmón touches an array of indigenous farmers who uphold traditional practices in the face of modern changes to food systems in this personal narrative from the University of Arizona Press.
‘We Are Still Didene’: Stories of Hunting and History from Northern British Columbia by Thomas McIlwraith examines Iskut, BC’s transition from subsistence hunting to wage work in trapping, guiding, construction, and service job, and challenges the idealized images of Indigenous Peoples that underlie state-sponsored traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) studies
And just in time for Thanksgiving! Let us know if you make something from our cookbooks for your families this thanksgiving:
The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley is a rich cookbook with a delicious introduction to modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories.
A Feast for All Seasons: Tradional Native People’s Cuisine by Andrew George Jr. and Robert Gairns features recipes with ingredients from the land, sea, and sky, and focuses on an enduring cuisine that illustrates respect for the environment and the spiritual power that food can have in our lives.
Aahksoyo’p Nootski Cookbook: Authentic Indigenous Comfort Food by Shantel Tallow & Paul Conley features Blackfeet comfort food like bannock and chili. Aahksoyo’p means “we’re going to eat” in the Blackfoot language.
First Nations Recipes: a Selection From Coast to Coast by Gregory Lepine combines traditional Native cooking with historic and currently available ingredients.
Hungry Hearts: 13 tales of Food & Love edited by Elsie Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond is a collection of interconnected short stories that shows the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment in our lives.