Indigenous Foodways at Events: How to Balance Respect, Sourcing, and Guest Experience

Two years ago, I heard Chef Crystal Wahpepah speak — and I knew I wanted her on the show. It's finally happening on this week's Eating at a Meeting LIVE, just in time for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Crystal is a registered member of the Kickapoo Nation of Oklahoma and the chef behind Wahpepah's Kitchen in Oakland. She's a James Beard Emerging Chef finalist, a U.S. State Department culinary ambassador, and she's cooked everywhere from Food Network's Chopped to catering for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her new cookbook, A Feather and a Fork, gathers 125 intertribal recipes.

Here's what I keep seeing: every year, well-meaning planners and venues want to mark a cultural moment with the menu — and end up with something that feels performative instead of real. Indigenous cuisine gets treated like a theme, not a living food culture with its own ingredients, stories, and people behind it.

So we're talking about how to do it right. What "intertribal" actually means, and why Indigenous food isn't one single thing. How to source Native ingredients for a real menu or catering contract. What fair partnership with a Native chef looks like. And what caterers, hotels, and planners should know before they put a single Native dish in front of guests.

This is inclusion and experience design — the work I've spent 16 years on — through a lens most of us in events were never taught.

If you've tried to feature Indigenous food at an event, or wondered how, let me know — I want to hear from you.

Like what you heard? Subscribe to our newsletter for more episodes and insider content delivered right to your inbox!