Red Chef Revival explores modern Indigenous cuisine

In new web series, a Vancouver filmmaker profiles three Indigenous chefs and the role food plays in reconciliation

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      Vancouver filmmaker Daniel Berish, cofounder of Black Rhino Creative, is launching a new docu-series that looks at Indigenous cuisine and some of the people in Canada who are reclaiming and reinventing it.

      Red Chef Revival is a six-part Storyhive web series that follows three Indigenous chefs as they make their way across Canada to explore what modern Indigenous cuisine means to them and how they're maintaining their people's culinary traditions. 

      The hosts are: Algonquin chef Cezin Nottaway, who operates a food business out of Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation (Maniwaki) in Quebec; Chopped finalist Shane Chartrand; and Top Chef Canada finalist Rich Francis. They see Indigenous food as having a part to play in reconciliation. 

      In one episode, Francis travels to Osoyoos to cook with cougar. In another, Nottaway shares a traditional beaver-tail recipe in Fort McMurray following the devastating wildfires there in 2016. Chartrand prepares a seal-meat stew in Prince Rupert.

      B.C. is also featured when Nottaway visits Nemiah Valley, where she learns to pit-cook a deer and fire-roast a salmon.

      Among the other ingredients that the chefs incorporate in their cooking are bison heart and moose nose.

      Red Chef Revival will air on the Storyhive YouTube channel beginning today (April 16). The first 22-minute episode is free; subsequent episodes will air each week. 

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