Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
Food has a unique way of bringing people together. That can happen when we travel thousands of miles to a new destination to try new foods. It can also happen when you travel thousands of miles and find that the cuisine feels like home.
That’s what happened when I traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to embark on the first-ever trade mission focused on Indigenous products.
There I was, inside a Canadian grocery store that was well-stocked with Minnesota wild rice and pancake mix. And there I was, inside Vancouver’s only Indigenous restaurant — Salmon n’ Bannock — sampling a wide variety of Indigenous cuisine, including Anishinaabe foods from our part of the continent.
I didn’t just feel at home because some of the foods were familiar to me. I also felt at home because of what Inez Cook, the owner of Salmon n’ Bannock, said: “Indigenous food and restaurants are not just a theme.” She’s right. They’re not the avocado toast of 2024. They’re a connection back to the first foods that people ate dating back millennia.