you are an A+/100% student in grade 9 geography, and top of your class. Read this episode for Chuck and the First Nation's Kitchen then answer the questions:


Chuck and the First People's Kitchen. I come to Toronto quite a bit. I mean, in the past 10 years, I've been coming, you know, probably a few times a month, honestly, and being a Cook, you know, I've noticed the food scene. I mean, it's crazy. It's actually, you know, one of the go-to cities, I would say, in the world for food now. There's not really a First Nations community, but, you know, there is a community of First Nations. You know, it's a hub in this huge city I'm gonna have a... Do I want an Anishinaikano?...about each other, we don't say, is he Anishinaabe? We just say, is he......nish or she-nish, and that's how the short form came, right? So then it sounds really great with dish. Yeah, it's amazing. Right, it just rolls like that, so... Beautiful. Mmm. You want cream or sugar? No, just like that. Just like that, okay. want cream or sugar no just like that just like that okay thank you you're welcome obviously this dish is more than just a cafe it's known in our community as a teaching hub really we're not just doing demos on food we're doing workshops and public speaking and teaching so we're actually talking about uh what is smudging why do we have spirit plates i had a teacher who taught me this stuff, his name is Mark Thompson, he sent me on this journey. He told me I had the gift to bring back the traditional diet of the Anishinaabe people and that's why I came to do this work. You know, Joel's a restaurant guy, you know, and I definitely can relate, you know, that's what I do for a living. But when you walk into the cafe, just by everything on the walls and the products and the artwork, you can tell there's more than just a restaurant there. This is a 13 moon calendar. What it really indicates is all the different things we did at the different moons. So you can see the strawberry, that's June. This is when we harvest strawberries. Then there's raspberry moon, there's blackberry moon, and currently right now we're in corn moon. Now this calendar varies in different nations because like in my nation, that would be wild rice time. It's wild rice harvested. Yeah, depending on the temperature, like if you're in the west and the east. Exactly. Wherever you are, it's a little bit different. Like, this is kind of like a chef. You know, like, it's the basics and the essentials of life. I think we need to get back to that. The restaurant's been open for two years. You're in, I'm not going to say downtown Toronto, but like what's the neighborhood here? Yeah, well, this actual area here is called Koreatown. And so this is the Korean district of Toronto. We have every district there is, except we don't have an indigenous district. And that's the real journey. So we took a walk in the neighborhood and as we walk away from the restaurant, I realized, you know, Joel's really started something here and you can feel it. We have about seven community projects. Some of them are indigenous teaching gardens, some of them are not-for-profits, some of them are indigenous murals, some of them are films. That's all to create the first indigenous district in the city. You can tell that Joel's had a real big impact and his restaurant has had an impact on this area and you can really feel that presence. Wow! Literally like a block away. Yeah. This is our community garden. Literally like a block away. Yeah. This is our community garden. There's a bunch of groups in here. You know, there's people playing basketball and doing Tai Chi in the morning. It's just a really beautiful part of the city. Everybody's kind of waking up. Yeah. We have a very small traditional medicine garden at the very back by that structure. Here's some of our sunchokes right there. So sunchoke is a really interesting history in the food because it's from the sunflower family, right? You see how incredibly tall it is. Like you're tall but it's like a foot taller than you and it'll keep growing. Not only does the sunchoke bring down your blood sugar which of course you know that indigenous people have bring down your blood sugar, which of course you know that indigenous people have been struggling with blood sugar levels through diabetes. It's been an epidemic for over 50 years. This plant would have everything to do with helping deal with that issue. But the thing about it as a food itself, because of the height of it, when the snow buries it, you can harvest this throughout the winter. So they call this a survival food. So I'd just like to maybe do a smudge here. Yeah. Get the sage going. So smudging is a practice of ceremony. Its purpose is to practice of ceremony. Its purpose is to clean your spirit. So you're going to start every day with the smudge. So you're wafting it to bring that calmness and to take away all the negative energy in your mind, in your words, in the way you hear the world, in the way you see the world. So when you go out into the day, you're bringing the best version of yourself to the world and the way you see the world, so when you go out into the day you're bringing the best version of yourself to the world. It's nice having it so close to the restaurant and we just come down and grab fresh herbs. Yeah. Alright, let's eat. Alright. Let's do it. I'm hungry. To my knowledge, there are catering businesses, but there's only three, four restaurants, right? Two of them are owned by Indigenous owners, and one of them is a shared ownership. So Pow Wow Cafe is my restaurant in Kensington Market in downtown Toronto. We specialize in Pow Wow cuisine, so Indian tacos and corn soup and scondogs. Oh, Sean's awesome. He does like a contemporary infusion food. Pow Wow in our indigenous community is like a huge, almost like a grand council. We call all the people together. Any of our businesses, when people come in, they're learning and getting awareness and they're having an experience of indigenous culture and that's the most important thing. There's a little catering that's going out. I haven't done anything for it. Today? Yeah. What time? It goes at 4.45, so I'm good. Okay. How long have you been open? So we opened October of 2016. Okay. So then three years? Yeah, going on four. I wanted to know, you know, can I hack it in the city? So you're not from Toronto? No, no. You're from Ontario, but not from Toronto? No, no. You're from Ontario, but not from Toronto? No, no, never lived here before. And what's your background? What's your... Like, my mom's from Lac de Me Lac First Nation, just northwest of Thunder Bay. And that's in... I'll show you a picture. Yeah, show me. This one with the heart. Oh, Lac de Me Lac. Yeah. French. Thousand lakes. Like, lake of a thousand lakes, but in French. That's cool. I grew up going to powwows with my family. So it's just, it's the food I know. It's the food I grew up eating. And there's very few indigenous restaurants, especially when I first opened. So yeah, I just, I saw that the market, Kensington Market in Toronto needed some indigenous cuisine. Every nation has something to bring to the food. The market, Kensington Market in Toronto, needed some indigenous cuisine. Every nation has something to bring to the food, so we're all sharing knowledge from our different communities, right? Thank you. Thank you. Every community is different. Every community has something new to bring to the tables. Thank you. They share together the knowledge of the food. It's very important. So today what we're going to serve is Thank you. A venison stew, so we put this on special a lot. So it'll be a venison stew taco. It's just like traditional meat on fry bread you know jazzed up a little bit this is our own homemade fry bread dough this is my no-come-sus recipe here oh no yeah that's your grandmother yeah that's my grandma she watches over the kitchen you know grabbin pinch and so when you go back in you never want to grab from the same place but then you're just developing gluten just drop it in Preferably lay it away from yourself. Yeah. So the oil doesn't sit. Let it... Three, four minutes. So what's in, I mean, flour? Flour, baking powder, a little bit of brown sugar, salt, oil. Well, yeah, and this is kind of like one of those things that... Every culture has one. Yeah. Every culture has a fried bread. Yeah. So I save that and use it as stock. It smells like tea. So yeah, yeah. Makes an awesome iced tea. So that's the cooking water from the rice, basically. That's the cooking water. It's a wild rice stock. So we're making later today, Three Sisters stew for catering, so that'll be like some of the... It's like a vegetarian. What do you put in your Three Sisters soup? Corn, bean, squash, but I had a brother. You know who the brother is? No, the rice. Potato. Potato? Yeah. Nice. I thought he was a cousin. No, he's a brother. No, he's a brother. Okay, cool. You know, I think Sean and I, we could get along. I mean, I like his philosophy on food. You can tell that he doesn't mess around and it's all about... Thank you. The food that tastes good, it's not fancy, it's real. It's honest. And most importantly, it's really delicious. The creation or thought of getting an indigenous neighborhood here in Toronto. Have you heard about that? I've heard about it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think we should move forward cautiously with such a, you know, government sort of mandated false neighborhood. Like other neighborhoods weren't set up with, you know, here you go. It happens naturally. There's a difference between something happening organically as like Chinatown. Joel from NishDish, a good friend of mine, he has a business in a different end of town in like little Korea. And he's already started a business and he's got, there's other indigenous sort of organizations in his neighborhood and he's like, it's here. It's here and he's like an inspiration for the community. So like, I think it has to happen organically. I don't think it has to be like ruled with some sort of iron fist. Yeah. The thing about Toronto that I love so much is that it's so many different cultures. We can celebrate all the many different diverse cultures that come from all over the world, and that is a teaching of First Nations people. The next step is our community will come together and build its own district because we want to see each other and we want everyone else to know who we are. We don't want to be strangers on our land. It's not about just putting food on the plate because of course our food is so inaccessible because the food lines have been completely eradicated in many ways. So we have to go find the food. You can't go purchase it in a store. Like our wild rice, it comes all the way from Saskatchewan even though we're in the heart of wild rice country. Like every lake should have wild rice in it. That's how that plant grows. But it's not anywhere because we, you know, the two-legged, that's us, we damage it with all of our use of the water. So there are a few groups, people who are trying to regrow it, bring it back. But if Nish Dish takes their rice, they won't have enough for their community. So he can't sell me all his rice. They need it for their community. So we're getting ours. It's not indigenous owned, but it's indigenous picked. It's from Saskatchewan. It's a lot of money and it's got to be shipped here. So wild rice is just one example. The other one is white corn. It's of course in the three sisters and it's essential. You have to have it in the dish because that's our special corner. That corn is like no other corn in the world. I just like a few days ago went through the The whole process of making the white corn, the lying, the drying, the picking. There's quite a bit of an intense process to actually get the corn to where you can actually eat it. So first thing is you get the corn, you put it in water, and you bring it to a boil. You let it boil for about a half hour, and then you add in the ashes. And it's really, it's hardwood ash, and you know, I would say the quantity is probably like, I don't know, a big bag? So dump it all in, stir it up. So it's going gonna start turning orange. Oh man, yeah, you can really see it. What's the actual process? Like, what are we doing with the ash? Like, obviously it changed color, we saw that, but what's it actually doing? It actually enhances the calcium and all the other vitamins inside. It takes off the outer hull. It'll just dissolve. Oh, you won't have to take it off. It'll just dissolve. The lye really, it speeds up the process. So it just eats away at that little shell. Yeah. And then you have quite a process of washing the corn, cleaning it. I'll hold it like this. Well, you might want to get lower to the ground. And it's pretty toxic, so you want to use gloves and kind of, you know, safety first kind of thing. But obviously you earn a lot of respect for how long it takes to get that corn to actually be edible. But beyond that, just this ingenious way of knowing nature and being kind of one with nature is crazy, man. It's amazing to see that and to see the process today is fascinating. That corn is really powerful nutrition, more powerful than most corns, but you have to put it through the live process. How did they know that? It honestly boggles my mind. It is boggling. I have to go to Six Nations every 10 days and get that corn. I can't go to the Ontario food terminal like all the other restaurateurs or down the street and get it. So it's like I have to pay go to the next video. I'll show you the, we call it the hedgehog cut. And so this allows your fry bread not to go flying everywhere. We're on the plate. Thank you. Oh, and that's the venison stew? Venison stew, yeah. Okay, so you're, uh, what we like to call generous with the push. Gener stew, yeah. Okay, so you're... What we like to call generous with the portions. Generous, yeah, this is real food. You know, no tweezers here. Yeah, yeah. For Sean, I think food, you know, takes its roots in traditional food, but it's not kind of defined. It doesn't have to fit in like a box, you know what I mean? It can be about other food and other cultures. And I think that's the part of being in Toronto where, you know, you've got this base, but really you have all these different kind of cultures and flavors. And in the end, you know, he just wants food to taste good. The taco. Nice. It's called the Indian taco? Indian taco. People have come in there like, you can't call it that. It's like, well, I didn't make up Kung Pao chicken. I didn't make up all these things. Like I didn't make up the name for an Indian taco. It's an Indian taco. It's just what it is. If you ask my nokomess, my grandma, what are you? She would have said, I'm an Indian. Like, it's just, it's a misnomer. It's not the right term for Indigenous people, but it's not like a negative sort of, it's not a bad remark. It's just Christopher Columbus showed up and he was like, India! So just, he was in the wrong place. We got stuck with the name, but it wasn't like a derogatory remark. This is, um... It's just just good honest food. Good honest food, there's a lot of, like, for me in here, I taste my mom, like that stew. Right. That's like a mom's. That's a mom's stew for sure. The fry bed. It's fantastic. Thank you so much. See you, miigwetch. In our culture, every single person has a responsibility to the community. That's how we lived for thousands of years. So that shouldn't have changed just because we created these huge urban centers. People still have to be engaged in the community and take care of the land. Take care of community gardens, volunteer. Wherever you can take place and participate in your community, go offer that. And that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to develop a whole community. So it's not just about, oh, how can I make my business better? It's how can my business benefit the community and I can still be successful at the same time, right? Oh, wow. All right, thank you. All right, let's try it. So you guys make your bannock? Yeah, this bannock just came out of the oven. You can feel how hot it is right now. Hey, hi, Will. Hello. How many pieces of bannock are going out right now? 120. 120, yeah. So they did several loaves to... Prepare the bannock for this morning's catering. This is simple but fresh and fluffy. So fluffy, exactly. Bison sausage? Yeah, the bison sausage has a little chipotle in it, and it's our recipe, so it has duck fat in it. Everything here is inspired by the culture and the tradition and there's more than just traditional here. You know what I mean? You are kind of mixing in stuff. So what's your take on that? Clearly we weren't making bison chipotle sausages back in the day. But this is a way to inspire the knowledge and the education of the buffalo. Because the buffalo represents all kinds of things to many different nations staff is all indigenous here so buffalo means different things to different nations yeah so when we talk about it I might have some teachings from the Cree people and I'll always share that I'll always reference if I'm talking about something from whom I got that teaching from. That's amazing. Miigwech. I think the community is incredible to engage, because our people have always been known as a very generous people, and also educators. We're the original people here, and of course we are the knowledge keepers. So knowledge keepers of the land, they have to share and teach other people how to live on the land. And that's how it all started. You know, when we first opened, for sure, I'd say like 75% of our customers, like as soon as we opened, everybody indigenous. Every native person in Toronto was here. Yeah, because they were like, what is going on? You can get Palau food, which was awesome. They're all coming to check it out, right? And they're, you know, indigenous people are a huge supporter of us. But now it's everybody. Like, all colors, all ages, everything. And that's the whole point of food. You know what I mean? I feel like food is that communicator. Food is that thing that we may know of another culture without ignoring the language, ignoring the, you know? Food first. That's what introduces you to a culture the language, ignoring the, you know? So food first, like, that's what introduces you to a culture, right? You are what you eat, you try food from another culture and you get some understanding, you know? I've been working in kitchens for 25 years and I've realized I know nothing about the culinary cultures of the First People. It's crazy, no? That's why I've decided to meet inspiring people, share their traditions, and see what they've become today. Here, I'm not a chef, just a curious guy here to learn. That's Chuck and the First Peoples Kitchen. All right, Wiesman! So this is dessert, salad, casserole. No. This is this. Enjoy, guys. The love I have is to feed people, right? That's my love. That's my joy. My mission, right? So it's not really a job. It's something I enjoy to do. So I do it on a daily basis. Not only feed my family, but? So it's not really a job. It's something I enjoy to do. So I do it on a daily basis. Not only feed my family, but I feed larger groups of people. Not much left, so 10 minutes, everything's gone. Just gonna sneak a little plate here. Alright, let's try it. Mmm. Guys, thanks a lot, huh? Oh, yeah. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. How was it? Oh, this is a... Very good, guys. Yeah, everything was okay. It was perfect. Okay, good. Go on in. What do you think? That was quick, huh? That was good. Ten minutes? Ten minutes, it's done. It's a fabulous journey. I like it. And I don't think I'd give it up for anything. It's something that I fell into. Sort of thing. Every day, it's just getting more interesting and interesting..




3 interesting things in the video (short bulletpoints):
2 questions I have (confused / curious)(short bulletpoints):
One inspiring or surprising thing in the video:
1a) How are the restaurant owners (Joel & Shawn) working to create an “Indigenous neighborhood” in Toronto?  

b) Do you think they will be successful?  What evidence do you have?

c) Why do they want to have an Indigenous neighborhood?  Why in Toronto?


2. First nations have a role in their communities of Knowledge Keeper.  This term “refers to someone who has been taught by an Elder … within their community. This person holds traditional knowledge and teachings, and they have been taught how to care for these teachings and to know when it is / is not appropriate to share this knowledge with others.”

Who is the knowledge keeper in this video - who and what is he teaching?