Kincentricity: Connecting to Nature with American Indian Food Traditions

An exploration of the ancestral foods and dishes that have sustained American Indians for millennia by a leading Indigenous voice.

The best-selling author of Iwigara: The Kinship of Plants and People now turns to guiding the reader through the ancestral, traditional foods and hyperlocal culinary legacies of American Indian tribes, exploring over fifty foods and offering over twenty healthful, authentic recipes.

Salmón introduces us to kincentricity, a deeply embedded Indigenous worldview where all living beings—plants, people, and animals—share the same breath, relating as “kin” in an extended ecological family. This philosophy guides an inherent responsibility to be good stewards of life. He advocates “eating the landscape”—consuming the foods naturally cultivated by the environment. It is a time-tested, sustainable, and profoundly healthful approach that Indigenous peoples have used for thousands of years. Geographically specific methods for harvesting and cooking traditional heirloom foods have resulted in a rich and delicious culinary legacy.

In this volume, Salmón takes the reader deep into American Indian culture, including related myths and narratives that reveal the rich lore and nutritional science behind traditional foods and the practices of gathering them that ensure bountiful harvests every year. The recipes contained within are more than instructions; they are living cultural records. | Enrique Salmón is a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) scholar and one of the foremost voices in Indigenous. He is the chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at Cal State University, East Bay, and has published widely on Indigenous solutions to climate change and the importance of bioculturally diverse regions as refuges of hope and resilience.