The Indiana University First Nations Educational and Cultural Center and IU Dining partnered to host an Indigenous Peoples’ Day lunch for students, staff and guests Monday.
Food Network’s “Chopped” winner Chef Justin Pioche cultivated a special menu for the event alongside IU Catering Chef Eric Bueno and his team. Pioche won the “Indigenous Inspiration” episode of the show in April.
The lunch was held at the Indiana Memorial Union Tudor Room from 11a.m.-2 p.m., with a tortilla-making demonstration from Pioche’s mother, Janice Pioche, followed by a talk with Pioche from 3-4 p.m. in the Georgian Room.
“We really want to be able to help promote the efforts of indigeneity from the ground up,” Pioche said.
Pioche, alongside his mother Janice and sister Tia Pioche, run the Pioche Food Group, a food service group based out of Farmington, New Mexico.
“Indigenous Peoples’ Day is something very special because we don’t get a lot of holidays veered towards indigeneity and Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island, so we celebrate when we can,” Pioche said. “We like to celebrate every single day that we’re Native American.”
Some Indigenous communities refer to the continent as Turtle Island in reference to pre-colonial Indigenous beliefs about creation.
The lunch showcased Indigenous foods with ingredients sourced from New Mexico, like steamed corn and Navajo tea, some of which the Pioches brought with them.
“We want to present a different kind of cuisine to campus,” Aneli Carrillo, food and beverage director for IU Hospitality, said.
First Nations Director Sherene Goatson Ing reached out to Pioche over the summer, asking him to come for the event.
“I wanted the community to come together and honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and what better way for the community to come together than through food?” Goatson Ing said.
The Tudor Room had 159 reservations for the event and had 280 people in attendance, IU Hospitality Director Mike Campbell said.
Carrillo works behind the scenes to plan food concepts and catered events, she said. The chefs at the IMU and the Tudor Room started preparing for the event Friday, Carrillo said.
"I had a couple Zoom meetings where we were just kind of talking through sourcing ingredients, because we want to make sure that we’re getting something that’s authentic,” Carrillo said.
Defne Jones, the AI grading and enablement lead at IU’s Kelley School of Business, attended the lunch to try the Indigenous foods offered. Jones said that after seeing the event posted online, she thought it would be a good opportunity as she is a “foodie.”
Diego Rangel, whose brother is an IU student, attended the lunch and talk; he has a high amount of respect for chefs, he said.
“It was really cool finally seeing another Navajo or native person actually be able to pursue this, since there’s not a lot of representation of Indigenous people in many things at all,” Rangel said.
During the second half of the event, Pioche hosted a talk in the Georgian Room, talking about the history of the Pioche Food Group and his Indigenous background.
“Our story, as Navajos, is a story of resilience,” Pioche said during the talk.
Pioche was inspired by his grandmother to begin his culinary career after she cooked for him throughout his childhood and grew tea leaves in her front yard, he said.
“Food is very powerful in itself because it brings us together whenever we are sad, whenever we’re happy, celebratory, so food is very powerful, and this is what we do; we feed people for a living,” Pioche said.
