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Native Nutrition

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Last summer, the project—the only program of its kind in the Midwest—finally found a permanent home on a 10-acre farm close to the Twin Cities.

Last year’s harvest produced lots of squash, mint and lettuce. This summer, a new project will help a women’s co-operative learn how to transform beans and vegetables into traditional foods and medicines.

Other plans abound: Auger hopes to create a marketable, signature bean soup to help support the farm. And Auger and Arcoren are hoping to get some expert advice on planting some of the most delicate seeds in their collection, varieties with only a handful of seeds remaining—including Cora Baker’s Winnebago Indian squash that looks like a loofah sponge.

Although Native Americans “from all over” responded to Auger’s call for seeds—sending them wrapped in old socks, tattered envelopes, even bits of toilet paper—it was Baker’s contribution that turned the gardening project into a reality.

“I became a sort of depository of seeds,” Baker wrote. “Some Indian people felt that I should have the seeds from their family. They must have felt I could hold on to them.”

Now Auger and her project are holding on. “We have a lifetime commitment to carrying on this dream of having healthy people who can eat healthy food,” she says.

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