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The Guardian
08-02-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Western food was unhealthy and costly. So they turned back to bison and mushrooms
On a Wednesday summer evening on the Rosebud Reservation, members of the Siċaŋġu Nation arrange 12 tables to form a U in the parking lot of a South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. The tables at the Siċaŋġu Harvest Market are laden with homemade foods for sale: tortillas, cooked beans, pickles and fresh-squeezed lemonade. The market is one of many ways the non-profit increases access to traditional and healthful foods that also happen to come with a low climate impact. The Lakota, of which Siċaŋġu is one of seven nations, were traditionally hunters and gatherers, but today, the Siċaŋġu Co non-profit is building on both new and old traditions to fulfill its mission. The market is one component of the group's food-sovereignty work, which also includes cultivating mushrooms and caring for a bison herd. Siċaŋġu Co is also working on housing, education and programs that support physical and spiritual wellness. But food came first. 'We started with food because it's so universal. Not just as a need but as a grounding cultural and family force,' said Michael Prate, who spearheaded the program in its initial stages. 'It's where people come together to build relationships.' The food inequities that Siċaŋġu Co is working to address can be traced back to the eradication of bison herds by white settlers during the 1800s. For many Lakota, bison are akin to family and play an integral part in both their physical and spiritual lives. Millions of bison used to roam these plains, but when colonizers pushed west, they slaughtered the animals en masse, both to make room for the cattle herds they brought with them, and to disrupt the Lakota way of life and force them on to reservations. At the market, Siċaŋġu Co member Frederick Fast Horse shows off the mushrooms that he has foraged and raised to passersby. According to an important story passed down in Lakota history, the Lakota were once cave dwellers, and mushrooms were key to their survival, Fast Horse says. These critical fungi are more than just calories, as Fast Horse believes mushrooms are part of what helped Lakota stay so healthy for centuries, until the effects of colonization, which shifted the nation's diet to a heavy reliance on dairy and processed meats. 'Every single mushroom actually coincides and targets a specific organ inside of your body,' he said. In addition to being a skilled mycologist and forager, Fast Horse is the chef at the non-profit's school, where he is reintroducing culturally significant ingredients to the students. Fast Horse makes breakfast and lunch for about 70 students and staff each day. The typical fare is pretty simple, he says: dishes made of just a handful of ingredients, plus a broth and spices. In collaboration with school leadership, Fast Horse is developing dietary guidelines that reflect more traditional foods and agricultural practices. This way of eating amounts to 'living off of the land' – it means eating 'all the foods that are already around us, everything that you grow, and very simplistic methods of preparing food and eating it', said Fast Horse. The diet they're launching at the school isn't just culturally important; it's also better for the students' health, according to Fast Horse, who is critical of the modern, industrialized food system. A diet that leans more on mushrooms and plants also happens to be more climate-friendly than the typical US diet, in which beef is consumed four times more than the global average. Between 12% and 20% of global emissions comes from meat and dairy farms. While the goal of Siċaŋġu Co isn't explicitly to eat less meat, it does aim to boost access to traditional foods. This includes both low-emissions plants and mushrooms that are locally harvested, and bison raised on a very small scale, treated as 'kin', in a way that looks nothing like a factory farm. Rosebud Reservation is home to the largest Native-owned bison herd, with more than a thousand animals roaming 28,000 acres (11,000 hectares). Bison are ruminants, like cattle, which means they, too, belch methane, but bison offer a variety of ecosystem benefits thanks to the way they live on the land. While herds of cattle also graze nearby, the differences are stark. Siċaŋġu Nation member Karen Moore, who manages the food-sovereignty initiative and lives on the reservation, describes how grazing cows tend to concentrate together, sometimes feasting on a single type of plant until it's depleted. Bison are more likely to cover more ground when they graze, eating a variety of plants, which has a gentler impact on the ecosystem. Last year, two animals from the nation's herd were donated to the school. With that meat, Fast Horse says, he has been able to replace 75% of the red meat the school would otherwise have procured. Getting the students to eat more culturally significant foods is not without its challenges, however. If one popular student decides they don't like a particular dish, then all the other kids follow suit, says Fast Horse. He avoids the problem by trying to make foods more palatable – for example, by grinding mushrooms into small pieces. 'They get the flavor, but they don't see the actual mushroom,' he said. Another Siċaŋġu Co member, Mayce Low Dog, teaches community cooking classes that instruct participants in how to use traditional ingredients in their dishes. The work is paying off. 'It seems like more people are into trying weirder foods, not necessarily like your tomatoes and cucumbers,' said Moore. 'It's been really, really exciting to see.' Her co-workers raved about her stinging nettle pesto, made from plants she'd foraged. Harvesting local plants is also a critical part of the group's work. The nation has 'been in crisis for hundreds of years', said Moore, but harvesting their own food is part of 'getting back to being self-reliant'. On a brisk morning during my visit, Moore and Low Dog invite me to join them to harvest local plants that they'll dry and turn into herbal teas, both for the farmers' market and a community-supported agriculture program that subsidizes food shares for some residents. The teas are a way residents can reconnect with traditional foods even if they're not skilled foragers themselves. Gravel crunches under the tires as we pull off the main road, and slowly roll along the banks of a pond. Along the way, Moore and Low Dog keep their eyes peeled for useful plants for tea. For both, foraging is a newer skill. As we walk, they consult each other about different plants, making sure they're selecting the correct ones and that everything is ready for harvest. It's a skill they're intentionally learning from each other and their elders. Moore reaches down to gather some ceyeka, or wild mint, for the teas. She's sure to leave behind about half of the plant, to ensure the plant continues to grow on the banks so there's more when they come back again on a later day. Victoria Contreras was introduced to the food-sovereignty initiative as a high school volunteer. Now, two years later, she manages the Siċaŋġu Harvest Market, and has learned to be more intentional about incorporating Indigenous ingredients into her meals. 'I'm actively looking for something that I can swap out, or a recipe that I can try,' she said. In addition to expanding community knowledge of traditional ingredients, the harvest market and other programs have brought community residents together. The market helps create new friendships and revive old connections, says Sharon LaPointe, who helps her daughter, Sadie, with her stand selling flavored lemonades and homemade pickles and bread. It's a sentiment shared by many of the vendors there that Wednesday. Michael Prate, who helped get the group off the ground, remembers some nation members weren't so sure about the group in the early days. 'I think people have a skepticism that things are going to go away,' he said, 'because that's the trend,' as many programs that pop up on the reservation tend to be temporary. There are challenges, including growing crops under the harsh weather conditions in South Dakota, conditions that will become even more severe in a changing climate. The many shifting challenges facing the Siċaŋġu Nation are why food sovereignty is so critical. 'They're here to teach us how to be food sovereign because someday, food is going to get too expensive for our people,' said Brandi Charging Eagle, who is part of the Siċaŋġu non-profit, but also follows its mission in her own home, where she is teaching her children how to grow their own food. 'The prices of food are going up, but our wages aren't.' The Siċaŋġu Nation's non-profit will have to stay nimble in order to survive. 'There's always going to be something else that the community is going to be weathering and adapting to,' Prate said. 'That's just reality.' This story is part of an ongoing series on a just and climate-friendly food system, produced in collaboration with the Guardian, Nexus Media News, Sentient and Yes! magazine, with funding from the Solutions Journalism Network, advisory support from Garrett Broad (Rowan University) and audience engagement through Project Drawdown's Global Solutions Diary
Los Angeles Times
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Review: Larissa FastHorse's ‘Fake It Until You Make It' has its historic premiere at the Taper
Timing is everything in comedy, and one wonders how much funnier Larissa FastHorse's 'Fake It Until You Make It' might have been had it been produced at the Mark Taper Forum in 2023 when it was originally scheduled. The world has shifted off its axis since that relatively halcyon time when identity politics, the subject of FastHorse's farce, could be debated, mocked, ranted over and defended without fear of governmental reprisal. An emboldened Donald Trump has returned to the White House on a vendetta against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, setting in motion a new version of the Red Scare, except the target color scheme now is anything nonwhite. As nonprofit agencies across the land are scrambling to figure out how to respond to anti-DEI policies and threats from the new administration, the delayed premiere of 'Fake It Until You Make It' presents a satirical war between two rival nonprofit groups working on behalf of Native American causes. Good intentions are no guarantee of good behavior. In 'The Thanksgiving Play,' FastHorse skewered with merciless hilarity white woke hypocrisy. Here, she examines the way virtue signaling and moral one-upmanship have warped the nonprofit field, turning public service into a competitive sport and corrupting even those who have dedicated themselves to lifting up their own communities. 'Fake It Until You Make It' doesn't anticipate the dire situation unfolding in 2025. But it does, helpfully, move beyond the rigid partisan categories that have clouded our thinking and made shared enlightenment seem completely out of reach. The cleverly constructed play, a co-production with Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage, is freighted with historical significance of its own. It's the first time a Native American playwright has been featured on the Mark Taper Forum's marquee stage — and it almost didn't happen. (In a candid interview with Times reporter Ashley Lee, FastHorse revealed that had Arena Stage not stepped in after CTG faltered, there 'would have been a lot of hurt and unhealed pain, which would have made this process difficult.') When the play begins, River (Julie Bowen of 'Modern Family' fame), a white woman who runs Indigenous Nations Soaring, has taken out a restraining order to prevent anyone from messing with her cat. Wynona (Tonantzin Carmelo), a proudly identified Native woman who leads N.O.B.U.S.H., an organization seeking the removal of invasive plants, is the main target of River's ire. The two women work in the same office complex and are bitter enemies. Wynona has designs on River's cat, and River keeps planting a botanical species on workplace grounds that Wynona is on a fanatical mission to wipe out. Battle lines are drawn and immediately transgressed in a play that takes farce out of the bedroom and into administrative corridors and cubicles. The doors that slam, as farcical doors are built to do, open to work spaces, where a good deal of time is spent scheming and counter-scheming. Mistaken identity is a central conceit of the genre, and FastHorse takes this charade to another intellectual level. While reveling in the silly masquerade, 'Fake It Until You Make It' interrogates the meaning of racial identity and authenticity, leaving no dogmatic position unscathed by irony. FastHorse's nonprofit universe includes a range of characters of varied ideological commitments and tactical approaches. Theo (Noah Bean), Wynona's partner, is an eco-activist who returns from clearing thousands of acres of English ivy from California wilderness to find himself conscripted into Wynona's war against River. Theo, who's white, wants to marry Wynona, but her conscience won't let her start a family with a non-Native. She dangles, however, the reward of being his common-law wife if he pretends to be a Native applicant for a job at River's organization. She wants him to tank a big grant application to better her chances of being selected. Theo has misgivings, but his passion for Wynona overrides his scruples. Two other nonprofit leaders have their headquarters in this suite of offices. Grace (Dakota Ray Hebert), an advocate for race-shifting, has launched an organization to help people transition their identities 'ethically and safely.' A Native woman eager to try on other selves, she provides costume designer E.B. Brooks the opportunity to create a pageant of flamboyant international garb, designed to lay unmistakable claim to new cultural identities. Krys (Brandon Delsid), who identifies as gender-fluid, heads an organization that advocates for the Two Spirit community. When Mark (Eric Stanton Betts), the native applicant Theo impersonates, shows up at the office to apologize for missing the interview with River, Krys runs interference for Wynona. But Mark, a fellow Two Spirit soul with a lot of sex appeal, erotically complicates Krys' loyalties. The farcical math is elegantly worked out by FastHorse, who maps out the ensuing chaos with elan. The production, directed by Michael John Garcés, quickly reaches cruising speed on a vivid set by Sara Ryung Clement that is full of Native color and craft. But much as I admired the playwright's ingenious examination of identity politics through the looking glass of farce, I never quite succumbed to the comedy's demented logic. My resistance wasn't just a function of the radically changed political landscape that has made DEI concerns no laughing matter. There's a cynicism at the heart of 'Fake It Until You Make It' that distances us from the characters. FastHorse, to her credit, doesn't write schematic plays. She refuses to treat her Native protagonist as a hero. But in making Wynona so belligerently flawed and River so narcissistically self-serving, FastHorse diminishes our concern for the outcome of their battle. A pox on both their houses, I found myself indifferently concluding. Grace, who refuses to be confined by demographic category, is in many ways the most outrageously polemical of the characters. Yet she gains the upper hand in the debate over identity politics with a perspective that is as compassionate and cogent as it is controversial. Unfortunately, the way she's deployed as a sight gag makes it hard to take her seriously when it counts. Perhaps the real hero of the play is the playwright, who panders to no quarter. But a touch more emotional reasonableness in Wynona might have paid theatrical dividends. In farce, we expect to see characters, overwhelmed by situations of their own making, behaving at their clumsy worst. But we need to care about them sufficiently to stay attentive, and for that to happen we must believe that they are capable of self-awareness, if not growth. Farce is a notoriously cruel genre, as critic Eric Bentley has noted. It allows us, as he writes in 'The Life of the Drama,' to work out our 'psychic violence' through laughter. We know the brutality isn't really happening, so we go along with the vicious high jinks. But a corner must be preserved for affection, and FastHorse spares not even River's cat from unnatural abuse. Krys and Mark arrive at a moment of tender connection. The panting lust that allows them to override the lies that brought them together isn't enough farcical compensation, but Delsid and Betts have a sweet, daffy chemistry. Bowen's River and Carmelo's Wynona play their characters' shortcomings to the hilt. There's no danger of a saccharine ending. Amy Brenneman takes over the role from a fearlessly funny Bowen when 'Fake It' moves to Arena Stage in April. Carmelo, who could incorporate a moment or two of introspective reflection in her uncompromisingly ferocious portrayal, will travel with the rest of the cast to Washington, D.C. Bean's Tom bristles at the way Wynona plays the race card. ('You can't just say 'blood money' to win every argument,' he tells her.) But he's carnal putty in her hands, leaving the impression of a good guy with a big id and no spine. The play ends with a joke that made me wonder if Center Theatre Group has it in for cats. (I had hoped to expunge the memory of the dramatized feline murder that took place in 'Our Dear Dead Drug Lord' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.) We could all use a good laugh right now in these disturbing political times, but I left the Taper with a wince.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wildfires couldn't stop this playwright from opening her new production: 'This is a beautiful way for us to come together'
For playwright Larissa FastHorse, staging her newest play, Fake It Until You Make It, has not been without its challenges. The Sicangu Lakota writer, who is mounting the production in Los Angeles through March 9 and then in Washington, D.C., had to contend with tragedy in the form of devastating wildfires that consumed parts of L.A. 'There were people here on our production team and on staff and our cast that were evacuated. Some lost their homes, some didn't lose their homes [but] their family lost their home,' FastHorse told Yahoo Entertainment. 'It's been a stressful time to do this.' See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. FastHorse, whose 2023 production of The Thanksgiving Play marked the first Broadway play by a female Native American playwright, looked to her team, including director Michael John Garcés, before making her next move. 'I hate to sound like that person, but theater can be really healing and especially doing a comedy like this,' said FastHorse, who is also the first Native playwright to be staged at Los Angeles's Mark Taper Forum. 'So we took one full day off [during the] wildfires — the day after they exploded and everything was just so scary and uncertain here in L.A.' After talking to her cast and crew — they decided to move forward, calling the theater a 'safe space' and a 'happy place.' 'They said … 'These fires are not going to last forever but this play can have really long-term effects, and we want to be a part of it,' so that's what we did,' she said. The play began previews at the Taper on Jan. 29 and officially opens Feb. 5. Julie Bowen stars as River, a white woman running the Native American-focused nonprofit Indigenous Nations Soaring, who has a rivalry with Native nonprofit leader Wynona (Tongva actress Tonantzin Carmelo), who runs N.O.B.U.S.H., an organization that combats the invasive butterfly bush plant. The satirical farce takes on identity conflicts and the lengths people will go to 'shift' their race. '[River and Wynona's] escalating rivalry ensnares colleagues and bystanders, leading to the unraveling of secrets that highlight the absurdities of ambition and authenticity,' the play's description reads. What could otherwise be seen as weighty and touchy is played for laughs — on purpose — to offer an accessible and nuanced way into these often sensitive topics. 'We're thinking a lot about who's laughing at what when. Is that OK? Is it not OK? My plays ask a lot more questions than they answer, but we also make sure it's the right questions,' FastHorse said, 'and it's a little trickier in something as broad as a farce.' The play uses humor to engage conversations like the effect so-called 'Pretendians' (non-Native people who claim Indigenous ancestry) have on Indigenous people and resources, as well as people who don't feel entirely comfortable in their own race. FastHorse also takes the opportunity through her work and collaboration with Garcés to spotlight Indigenous artists in the cast, crew and overall set design, which works to further 'Indigenize' the theater space. After the play's run in Los Angeles, Fake It Until You Make It will be staged at D.C.'s Arena Stage from April 3-May 4, when Amy Brenneman will take over for Bowen. The rest of the cast and director remain unchanged. While FastHorse hopes audiences gain new insight into an Indigenous perspective, she hopes her play, first and foremost, serves as a reminder that going to the theater can be enjoyable. 'I honestly always want people to walk away and say, 'Why don't we go to the theater more? This is so much fun,'' she said. 'We've been through so much here in Los Angeles specifically, but in our country, there's a lot going on and so this is a beautiful way for us to come together no matter what your previous background is, no matter what your political affiliation is, no matter any of your previous beliefs before you walk in this theater.' She added, 'I want you to be able to come in and have a good time and have fun and say, 'Gosh, we've got to do this more often.''
