Born and raised in Los Angeles, self-identifying Xicana Indigena Claudia Serrato is an Indigenous Culinary Anthropologist. She studies the foods of her ancestors as a way to help herself and others find a physical and spiritual sense of grounding. She says there is much wisdom to be gained in learning of the earth and foods consumed by early Indigenous people.
"There is so much to learn from the eating habits of our Indigenous ancestors. To start, they ate food that was geographically localized," she says. "Not too close but not too far. They also ate ecologically, that is, in cosmic alignment with all of creation. Indigenous foodways, diets, and eating habits were also seasonal. They tasted the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Eating habits were also sustainable. Food did not go scarce. People knew how to eat in balance. Naturally, the food was organic. Our Indigenous ancestors did not know the taste of GMOs, artificial flavors, and unnatural additives. Most importantly, our Indigenous ancestors eating habits were Native. That is, Indigenous to space, place, and time." Serrato suggests an easy way to remember from the eating habits of our ancestors is to remember that an eating habit always arrives with a lesson whether it's local, ecological, sustainable, seasonal, organic, or native.
Where to find her:
@xicana_indigena
