Students from Northwest Indian College at the Muckleshoot Tribe learn about traditional salmon preparation and skin tanning during a monthly seminar of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project. Photo courtesy of Northwest Indian Fisheries Comission.
You might assume that a nutritionist would be keeping tally primarily on the likes of protein and omega-3s in a salmon fillet, but for IATP Food and Community Fellow and Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project coordinator Valerie Segrest, the connection to our food, or as she puts it, "the meaning of food and what it has to teach us" is at the forefront. Segrest and her community in the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe believe that traditional foods tie a community to the land and provide a sense of place--the real key to community health: “Having traditional food available and for people to be able to eat those foods is not just about individual health, its about the health of the community."
A recent video from the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission explores this important perspective on community health while leading us step-by-step through preparing salmon--from "sweet meat" to the tanning of the skin for crafts like pouches and wallets.
For more information, please read the full article from the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and visit the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project website.
