Posted on 04/04/2022 6:56:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When it opens this spring at UC Berkeley, Cafe Ohlone will be a first of its kind, museum-like restaurant honoring every facet of Ohlone culture, from foraged indigenous foods to the Chochenyo language, which will be heard in songs emanating from among native trees.
Co-founders Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino started the cafe in 2018 in the courtyard of University Press Books. It was the first restaurant ever to showcase the foods of a people who have lived in the Bay Area for 10,000 years.
But this new, larger Cafe Ohlone will expand on that menu, introducing dishes like silky black oak acorn soup and seared venison backstrap, and serve as a community space for living Ohlone to attend language classes and other cultural activities. It comes on the heels of Oakland’s first Native American restaurant, Wahpepah’s Kitchen, which opened in November and whose chef, Crystal Wahpepah, is a finalist for the James Beard award for emerging chef.
“We want this to be a vibrant, thriving space to show our living culture, and where the primary goal is to provide that physical space our community has been lacking for so long,” Medina says.
And it will be housed in an unlikely location: In the courtyard of UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, an institution that has long grappled with charges of historical wrongs against the Ohlone people by holding on to sacred Ohlone objects and thousands of ancestral remains.
Medina hopes the restaurant’s presence will bring forth an era of cooperation with the institution, creating avenues for communication and partnerships that reach far beyond the kitchen.
“We understand that the cafe on its own isn’t going to be repatriating our ancestors,” Medina says. “But climate and presence make a difference. We want to see greater healing, new beginnings and strengthening the relationships that have been developing.”
As Medina told the Bay Area News Group, the outdoor restaurant will be divided into three areas. A gated entry will reveal what he calls a “curated culinary and educational ex
Mmm Acorn paste.
If I don’t eat there, am I racist?
I have a cookbook, always meant to try making acorns.
Is there a way to read it without subscribing?
If you eat there, you’re racist. They accept wampum or bitcoin.
They are very bitter!
makamham(dot)com/cafeohlone
Cafe Ohlone is a valuable and necessary space for Ohlone cultural identity in the East Bay, where tradition flourishes in a modern-day setting. We have waited since our early closure
https://www.makamham.com/hiitiy-makamham-menu
Native American cuisine is an acquired taste. The Wokies in Berkeley are going to have to make believe they like it when they first taste it. Most will be a one and done.
I’ll have bark with a side of moss.
Yeah, I’ve had a real hankering for some clams and blackberries.
That’s not whetting my appetite.
If they do frybread, I’m in.
But that seems sort of controversial.
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Never heard of this.....
I have heard of Abalone though...and have ate it.
I'm part Native Pottawatomi...and speak some...but not much.
Happy Hour- two for one firewater.
” clams and blackberries.”
Without food stamps it would be a summer staple for the poor in coastal towns.
I dunno. Most seem too stupid to figure it out. I hike through some homeless camps on my way to the grocery store. I’m making mental notes of the edible plants I see. No wild walnuts around here, but I recognize the mussels, clams, blackberries, oxalis and tomato in that dish. Transportation will be a big deal if things get much worse. A bike ride to an area I could dig a few clams might be fun.
Wonder if they will serve these foods...The Piutes ate pounded earthworms, others ate maggots.
I will say that the venison backstrap looks pretty good.
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