Smokin' Ace

Mitsitam Café features regional Native foods

Posted: September 28, 2004 - 4:33pm EST
by: Jerry Reynolds / Washington D.C. correspondent / Indian Country Today

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Visitors to the National Museum of the American Indian enjoyed a lunch break and Native cuisine at the Mitsitam Café on Sept. 21. (Lucinda Rowlands / Indian Country Today)
WASHINGTON - The National Museum of the American Indian’s Mitsitam Café (it means "Let’s Eat" in Piscataway) is a major helping of exposure for Native cuisine, and a breakthrough opportunity for some Native food suppliers.

The café’s cuisine, available at five permanent buffets as standing menu items, is South American, Mesoamerican, Northern Woodlands, Northwest Coast and Great Plains. In terms of the palette, that means quinoa and wild rice salads, buffalo chili, juniper salmon, tortilla and pumpkin soups, corn tamales, tacos, turkey and cranberry, blue cornbread and quahog clam chowder … It means that many Indian luncheon meetings will take place at the Mitsitam, and that many non-Indians will carry word of Native cuisine into the mainstream.

The café is also an opportunity for many Native food suppliers. One that has managed to capitalize is Intertribal Bison Cooperative. ITBC’s Fred Dubray said the organization has a contract with the museum to provide approximately 5,000 pounds of buffalo meat every month, a considerable market for the ITBC member tribes. But that may only be the beginning of the contract’s ultimate value. To have the good taste and health virtues of Native-produced buffalo meat permanently served in the nation’s capital is certain to grow the market here and elsewhere. Already, Dubray said, another nationally known D.C. institution has approached the cooperative for all the buffalo hot dogs it can provide.

Another Mitsitam supplier has a similar but more complex story. Honest Tea is not owned by Indians, but it is known for buying its teas from Native producers wherever possible, and for working with them on capacity issues when necessary. On occasion it also provides a percentage of its profit to Native organizations, as First Nations Development Institute of Fredericksburg, Va., and Pretty Shield Foundation of Billings, Mont., discovered some five years ago. Honest Tea’s owners are firmly committed to socially-responsible investing throughout the production process.

The bottled teas are a blend of light refreshing taste and low sugar content, a great addition to Mitsitam’s emphasis on healthy foods in the fight against diabetes.

This article can be found at http://www.indiancountry.com/?1096403815

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Gail405

Sounds pretty good to me. Not have read the link,I wonder if they will enlarge their operations in an area farther west. Sounds to me like that would be a prudent decision. I feel certain, in the field of minorities, that big government would look favorably in the groups direction. Maybe even assist them in whatever way it is decided there is a need.!! Luck GES