2021. Library Considerations for the Colonial Impacts of Indigenous Cookbook

stolz@ualberta.ca Abstract According to Natifs (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems), the first action in understanding the Foundations of an Indigenous Food System Model is the “Removal of Colonized Thought.” Food sovereignty, physical and spiritual connection to Land, and sustainable food practices are interlocked with decolonial action. Considering Traditional Knowledge (TK) as intellectual property, what does it mean for libraries to collect books containing TK, such as cookbooks written by Indigenous authors, published by Indigenous publishers or otherwise dealing with Indigenous Food Systems? Mindful of the colonial impacts on cookbook publishing in Canada, the author proposes a 4-part framework for libraries when acquiring or weeding Indigenous cookbooks to and from their collections. Used as a tool, the framework promotes the stewardship of collections and metadata that do not perpetuate colonial violence through language and Eurocentrism, but champion Indigenous authors, publishers, and content. Written from the position of queer-settler, the essay provides examples of published works that meet the criteria of the framework, celebrating Indigenous Food Systems that predate librarianship’s colonial classification. Through personal narrative, the author demonstrates how libraries can integrate the offerings of such texts can be integrated into a personal stewardship of the teachings being shared that directly informs the case for equitable collections

he month of July has always held a special and intoxicating power over my life.
July, the month of my birth -is also the month of long days spent tending plants in the garden, late nights sharing stories around a fire and, most importantly, time spent picking saskatoon berries near the creek behind my family acreage. When I reflect on my childhood spent in the southern part of what is now known as Saskatchewan, these midsummer berries feature prominently. My mom, sister and I would spend days along T To Cite: Stolz, D. (2021). Library consideration for the colonial impacts on indigenous cookbook publishing. Pathfinder: A Canadian Journal for Information Science Students and Early Career Professionals, 2(2), 35-52. https://doi.org/10.29173/pathfinder29 the lazily flowing creek behind our old farmhouse filling pails of saskatoon berries to be baked, frozen and shared with our family who could not afford to spend their July days amongst the berry bushes. Although I did not know it, we were participating in a tradition and way of being that extended far beyond my perception of time and place; a tradition that connected us to traditional ways of life that I can never truly understand. My mother would remind my sister and I not to take all of the berries off of a single bush to be sure that we left some for the animals that lived in these woods. As a child, I unknowingly participated in the gift economy (Wall Kimmerer, 2013) by partaking in a reciprocal relationship with the Land that held an expectation that we would receive the gift of the berries to pass forward while also being mindful that we would eventually give back through learned stewardship towards the forest. Perhaps my mother did not realize that she was passing along teachings that extended beyond herself and into time immemorial. At the time, we were simply picking berries.
Growing up on a homestead near both forest and river shaped my relationship to the Land from a young age and fostered a lifelong interest in healthy, sustainable, homegrown foods. My dad and sister hunted deer each fall and fished from the boat in the summer and through holes in the ice in the winter. My mom and I would tend the garden and ferment our produce, turning garden tomatoes into salsa, beans and carrots into pickles and berries into jams and preserves. My relationship to food has always been personal because I knew the plants and animals that nourished my body and mind. This relationship to food has helped me to cultivate a keen interest in food sovereignty, and sustainable food-ways has allowed me to think about food beyond just what is on our plates.
As a lover of books and learning, I am also drawn to writing about food and particularly cooking and fermentation. I devote a cupboard in my kitchen solely to the storage of cookbooks. And so, as I exist between the world of the kitchen and the study, I find myself thinking critically about the quality and types of cookbooks that are being published as well as the historical implications of cookbook publishing. As both a preservice librarian and established home-cook, I am critical of cookbooks that are purchased and kept within the collection of libraries for reasons that will become clear throughout this essay. I am curious about the context of Indigenous food systems and This research paper is focused primarily on Indigenous food contexts and publishing but is limited by the scope of language that I employ. "Indigenous" is a term that is being used to denote Indigeneity to the multiple groups of peoples that first inhabited the land now known as North America (Chartrand & Cockrall-King, 2019). The term is inclusive of Inuk, Métis and First Nations peoples and is being used accordingly throughout my writing. Where possible, I have indicated which specific Nation or group of Peoples that I am writing about. However, due to the colonial past and present, this is not always possible and so at times "Indigenous" is being used in a pan-Indigenous context. I am also limited by the lasting impacts of attempted assimilation and systematic erasure of Indigenous identity from publishing. This has resulted in few primary sources of historic Indigenous cookbook publishing. For the purpose of this paper the term "Indigenous cookbook" is used as a descriptive tool for any cookbook STOLZ 38 that is published by Indigenous Peoples or is about Indigenous Peoples food traditions, cooking techniques and Traditional Food Based Knowledges.

Creating Context
Food is political. This is something that is undeniable when considering the complexities of food-systems and production. Indigenous food-ways, food sovereignty, security and food-based Traditional Knowledges are imperative to understanding contemporary and historic Indigenous cookbook publishing. This section looks to provide important context towards understandings of Indigenous Ways of Being and Knowing towards food. It is crucial to stress that food sovereignty is at the core of Indigenous cooking and therefore equally at the core of Indigenous cookbook creation and publishing.
The foundations of food sovereignty are rooted upon the rights and equity of culturally appropriate food production through methods that are both ecologically sound and sustainable (Via Campesina, 2007). Indigenous perspectives on food sovereignty focus special attention towards relationships between peoples, ancestors, living things and the Land with a central focus aimed towards the well-being of every participant involved (Coté, 2016). Food sovereignty is directly connected to self-determination and the processes of decolonization: "[it requires a collective movement toward focusing on] cultural responsibilities and relationships that Indigenous peoples have with their environment. It also requires examining the effort being made by Indigenous communities to restore these relationships through revitalization of their Indigenous foods and ecological knowledge systems as they assert control over their own well-being". (Coté, 2016, p.2) Food sovereignty is about more than knowing where your food is coming from; it is about creating a relationship to the food that nourishes both body and mind.
Traditional food practices connect closely with Indigenous food sovereignty and have been proposed as a possible solution to food insecurity that impacts Indigenous communities (Elliot, Jayatilaka, Brown, Varley, & Corbett, 2012as cited in Muller, 2018  of Indigenous Knowledge publication. Traditional Knowledges are understood to be knowledge frameworks that incorporate skills, modes of learning and unique practices that are cultivated through experience-based learning and are morally imbued and rooted within the idea of place (Cruikshank, 2005;Martin-Hill 2003;Muller, 2018, Alfred, 2005Coulthard, 2014;Dei, Hall, & Rosenberg, 2000;Menzies & Butler, 2006). These knowledges encapsulate traditional world-views that should be viewed as a part of the holistic Indigenous identity and systems of thought (Cruikshank, 2005;Kovach, 2009

Methods and Literature Review
The methodology of researching this topic involved searching for relevant articles in major databases and repositories such as Google Scholar, JSTOR, Library and

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Scholars have done some interesting writing about the topic of Indigenous cookbooks from the nation now known as Australia such as Fredericks and Anderson.
Their paper, "We eat more than kangaroo tail or dugong you know…: Recent Indigenous Australian Cookbooks" (2013), explores the Australian landscape of Indigenous cookbook publishing and the impacts of the Australian colonial context and the focus on nutrition within those cookbooks. While the paper is similar in topic to my research, it is limited in its scope as only exploring cookbooks published within the last five year and does not fully explore the effects of colonization on these cookbooks. The publication of academic papers regarding cookbooks that explore Indigenous cultural practices around food and recipes seems to be a niche of academia that has seemingly gone unstudied by North American library and information academics.

Colonial Impacts on Indigenous Cookbooks
Carrying forward the framing of Indigenous food preparation as TK allows for critical consideration of how the colonial state of Canada has benefited from the appropriation of these Knowledges while failing to give credit or recognition in early published cookbooks and recipe guides. Furthermore, the current Canadian Copyright Historically, European explorers and colonizers relied on Indigenous Knowledge to aid in food acquisition and preservation for their survival in the harsh arctic and subarctic climates of their exploration (Duncan, 2006). Pemmican (Creepimikan), the concentrated mixture of dried meats, berries and tallow, became vital for Europeans who ultimately actively destroy the very food systems that their colonization was built upon (Merriam, 1955;The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2015). Later, government informed STOLZ 42 policies such as the Indian Act of 1876 removed Indigenous peoples from traditional homelands and displaced communities onto reserve Lands or into suburban and urban settings that severely damaged the intrinsically Land Based Indigenous food security and sovereignty. Indigenous food-ways were replaced with supermarket chains and commodity rations that provided low nutritional value (Hall, 1994). These oppressive government policies, lacking in understanding and empathy towards TK, compromised Land Based teachings and severely hindered intergenerational learning around traditional food practices. Furthermore, the residential school system, as created by the

tradition, knowledge and teachings. The colonial effects of the generations-long
Potlatch ban on Indigenous food-ways would also later impact Indigenous food publishing. To write about Indigenous publishing without mention of the Canadian colonial project and its detriment would be a disservice to the knowledge which has been lost due to the oppressive policies of colonial governments.

The Publication of "Canadian" Cookbooks
Early cookbook publishing in Canada is notoriously difficult to chronicle due to the majority of cookbooks existing outside of the typical publishing sphere (Driver, 2008  landscape had an ethnocentric focus on European influenced cuisine from confederation until the mid 20th century. As Cooke (2009)

explains in her book titled
What's to eat? Entrées in Canadian food history, most published early Canadian cookbooks explicitly used the word "Canadian" in the title, which worked to achieve a kind of unification of "Canadian" identity; this is much like the American idea of a "melting pot" where identities and cultures merge to create a consolidated national identity.
These early cookbooks can be divided into five periods: contact and settlement, consolidation, affiliation, articulation and differentiation (Cooke, 2009, p. 4,5 Aitken's Canadian Cook Book (1945). It is notable in the context of Indigenous publishing that these cookbooks clearly were not by, for or about Indigenous peoples and foods. The few books written about Indigenous foods at this time were often anthropological, ethnographic or government documents. An example of early Canadian Indigenous food writing is Memoir 86, No. 12, Anthropological Series, Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation (1916) by F.W Waugh on behalf of the Canadian Federal Department of Mines (Waugh, 1916).
The fifth phase (differentiation) of Cooke's five periods was the start of a notable shift in Canadian food publishing. While the hegemonic focus on "Canadiana" as a cultural identity persisted into the 1960's, a noteworthy tide of recognizing increasingly diverse foodways began to populate the collective "Canadian" psyche. The world's fair that was held in Montreal in 1967 (Expo67) is considered to be the catalyst for a period of "intense introspection" for Canadian food writers, cooks and publishers (Cooke, 2009;Meyers, 2011) that continues to the present day. Expo67 presented Canadian cuisine as regionally based with a focus on endemic ingredients to each region. As Canadian society continued to diversify so too did Canadian culinary scholarship, publishing and writing. However, the academic study of Canadian domestic foodways remains a particularly understudied field when compared to food scholarship within the American context (Cooke, 2009). Books from the differentiation period, which ranges from the sixties to present day, have a focus that has shifted away from the nationalistic "Canadiana" identity and towards a more inclusive focus on regionalism, immigrant fusion cuisine and the beginnings of Indigenous voices and representation within Canadian cookbook publishing.

Acquisition/Weeding
Canada's continued colonial legacy has proliferated to the present day through negligent policies that fail to protect Indigenous Knowledges and maintain the reductionist and damaging status-quo. However, despite the barriers enacted to damage Indigenous publishing, beautiful, well-crafted cookbooks that are written,  Each Indigenous cookbook in my kitchen varies in the degree to which the language and writing has been decolonized and many books published today lack respect for Indigenous perspectives and cultural protocols (Younging, 2018). Books However, there has been a push away from hegemonic library classification systems for Indigenous materials and towards more inclusive cataloging language. For example, the X ̱ wi7x̱ wa Libraryan Indigenous academic library associated with the University of British Columbiauses its own classification system to organize materials as well as using the subject heading "First Nations" rather than the library of congress subject heading "Indians of North America" (X ̱ wi7x̱ wa Library, n.d.). The classification system which was developed by Brain Deer was designed for localized use in Indigenous libraries that reflect the local Indigenous peoples while also connecting to relationships between people, animals and the land (Weihs, 2019). A book that is as carefully crafted and considerate as tawâw deserves equal consideration from the librarians and cataloguers who create the metadata to accompany the book.
It is crucial that librarians purchasing materials that cover Indigenous cultures and foods for their collections exercise careful consideration. I propose a simple framework for collection development librarians to use when purchasing new cookbooks or when weeding existing library collections. This framework is part of the wider initiative to decolonize libraries by working towards truth and reconciliation which aims to deconstruct the power imbalances and dynamics that continually position Indigenous Knowledges and publications as "less" or "other" than settler colonial/European knowledge and books (Canadian Federation of Library Associations, n.d.b).
The framework that I propose encourages librarians to make careful examinations of the following four categories when adding to or weeding collections that contain Indigenous content. By taking time to review each category before the collection of a new Indigenous cookbook, libraries ensure that they are engaging in culturally appreciative practices that do not further contribute to colonial violence and oppressive trends that perpetuate the library as a colonial institution. The categories are authorship, content and writing, publisher and metadata: 1. Examine authorship: Librarians should examine who has written the work and if the author(s) have expressed Indigenous identity. If Indigenous identity has been expressed, which unique community do they belong to? If the author holds non-Indigenous identity, do they have a history of culturally appreciative and respectful writing? Does the author belong from within the community/culture? Be careful to avoid authors who are writing about an Indigenous community without holding Indigenous community connections.

Examine the Metadata:
By ensuring that the subject headings and classification data are culturally sensitive, it ensures that library users will be able to locate the book in a way that is not further damaging to Indigenous library patrons and does not perpetuate systems of oppression. Collections management and cataloguing librarians should exercise caution when encountering a book that uses out-dated or insensitive language in metadata.
These are simple yet important examinations that can be used to determine if the books are worthy of being added to a library collection or if they should be removed from the lending collection. Only through specific, actionable steps can libraries start the process of truly decolonizing the information that is stored and presented to library patrons.

July Feast
On July 4th 2020 I began my third decade of life. The end of my twenties and start of my thirties seemed like a momentous occasion that required an equally large celebration of food and drink. In reality, I had just been so steeped in researching Indigenous cookbooks that I took the opportunity to plan a menu that was sure to delight my guests. publishing. I wanted the meal to pay respect to the Indigenous Knowledges that I had encountered while researching this paper with a focus on sustainable ingredients that were local to my prairie home (with the exception of the clam fritters-which are delicious and I couldn't help myself). While I took time to choose books that I felt were good representations of Indigenous cookbook publishing, it is imperative that I stress that I am not the one who decides the quality of Indigenous publishing. While I was raised with close proximity and relation to the land and an appreciation of Indigenous culture and food-systems, I also have been a participant in colonial systems of oppression and knowledge privileging. The practice of settler-colonial peoples assigning value to Indigenous publishing is an innately harmful practice that I do not wish to partake in.
Likewise, I also do not assign myself the title of "ally" to Indigenous peoples in publishing as I feel like my allyship and advocacy for Indigenous publishing must be approved and given to me by Indigenous peoples, and so it should not be a title that I prescribe upon myself. I encourage settler colonial librarians to exercise caution when engaging in the determination of the quality and value of Indigenous cookbooks.
Indigenous food systems and sovereignty have persisted through the Canadian colonial project and will undoubtedly continue into the future. However, the contemporary resurgence and appreciation of Indigenous language and food ways revitalization will confidently result in the publishing of books that are void of harmful the stereotypes, language and misrepresentation that have been commonplace throughout the history of Canadian publishing. Furthermore, libraries that have taken appropriate action in response to restorative justice have an obligation to champion Indigenous publishing and to remove works from collections that perpetuate colonial violence. New publishers and strong Indigenous voices of chefs, librarians and authors are working to ensure that culturally sensitive and empowered Indigenous cookbooks will be present on our shelves and in our kitchens. This has the power to impact what is on our plates and ultimately, who we are.