Food as Culture,
Kitchen as Community
In many Indigenous worldviews, food is never just nutrition. It is relationship — to land, to season, to Ancestors, to community. As cooks in early childhood settings, we hold something powerful: the daily opportunity to reconnect young children and families to these living relationships.
What Every Cook
Already Carries
Cooks understand their programs in ways others may not always see — which meals bring children comfort, which ingredients stretch a budget, which foods connect families to home. That knowledge deserves to be named and honoured, not assumed.
Cooks hold knowledge about:
- Community food preferences
- Cultural and family recipes
- Seasonal ingredients
- Food safety
- Nutrition
- Budget planning
- Reducing food waste
- Supporting dietary needs
- Building relationships through food
- Connecting food to language and land
- Creating welcoming kitchens
A cook is not separate from the learning community. The cook is one of the most powerful educators in the building.
Stocked With Ideas,
Recipes & Resources
The Pantry is the shared resource library for the network — practical, downloadable materials cooks can use in everyday work. Search by keyword, or combine filters across ingredient, season, and type to find what you need.
Baked Za’atar Chicken
Crispy seared chicken roasted over red onions and brushed with a homemade za’atar blend of sumac, thyme, and toasted sesame. Served with a mint yogurt sauce. Serves 4-6.
Bean, Rice and Corn Salad
A make-ahead salad of black beans, brown or wild rice, and corn tossed in a zesty lime-cumin dressing. Hearty enough to serve as a summer main. Serves 6-8.
Cheesy Zucchini Bake
A hearty, all-in-one casserole layering seasoned ground meat and rice with thin zucchini rounds under melted mozzarella. Can be assembled ahead and baked when needed. Serves 8.
Corn off the Cob
A buttery skillet side that dresses up fresh or frozen corn with sautéed pepper, shallot, and fresh basil. Can be prepped ahead and finished at serving time. Serves 4-6.
Easy Refrigerator Pickled Vegetables
A simple no-canning brine for cauliflower, beans, carrots, cucumbers, and more. Ready to eat within a day and keeps well in the fridge for months. Makes 4 – 500ml jars.
Easy Tomato Soup, Three Ways
A homemade tomato soup you can serve chunky, smooth, or finished with cream. Freezes well and tastes even better the next day. Serves 6.
Great Lakes Granola
A nut-and-seed granola of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, black walnuts, and pecans, sweetened with maple syrup. Adapted from Sean Sherman's Turtle Island Cookbook. Makes 3 cups.
Green Tomato Salsa
A tangy canning recipe that puts an end-of-season glut of green tomatoes to good use with jalapeño, lime, and cilantro. Makes 5 – 500ml jars.
Nut and Seed Butters
A traditional method for grinding sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, or acorns into a rich, spreadable butter, with mustard, mint, and clover flavour variations. Adapted from Native Harvests by E. Barrie Kavasch. Makes 1 cup.
Stuffed Zucchini Boats
Halved zucchini filled with a garlicky tomato-basil sauce and melted mozzarella. A fast entrée or side that makes good use of a late-summer harvest. Serves 4-8.
Sunflower and Cranberry Cookies
Simple sunflower butter cookies sweetened with maple and dotted with cranberries — no special equipment needed and fun to make with kids. Adapted from Sean Sherman’s The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen. Makes 18.
Sumac Lemonade
A foraged, lemony drink made by steeping red staghorn sumac berries in cold water and sweetening with maple syrup. Includes safe-harvesting guidance. Makes 8 cups.
Zucchini Fries
Crispy panko-and-parmesan-coated oven fries made from garden zucchini — a fun, kid-friendly way to use up a summer glut. Makes 24 fries, serves 4.
No resources match your filters — try clearing a filter or searching a different keyword.
Finding Ingredients,
Suppliers & Connections
The Market helps cooks source food and kitchen supplies, build relationships with local and Indigenous growers, harvesters, and producers, and find practical ideas for time, food, and resources. Hover over any card (or tap on mobile) to see its links.
A note on protocol: Traditional foods and medicines may carry community-specific harvesting, preparation, and sharing protocols. Please follow the guidance of your own community, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and harvesters.
Indigenous-Owned Food Supplier
Indigenous-owned businesses offering maple syrup, wild rice, seafood, teas, honey, spices, and pemmican — sourcing that keeps food dollars in community.
Local Produce Farm
Find Ontario farms, markets, and growers offering seasonal produce suited to rotating, land-following menus.
Community Harvest Program
Connect with community gardens and local harvest initiatives near your program through Ontario-wide networks.
Stretching the Budget
Plan affordable, nourishing meals around what's in season and on sale — including traditional foods guidance.
- Child Care Menu Planning — Ontario Dietitians in Public Health
- Traditional Foods Guide — National Indigenous Diabetes Association (PDF)
- Institute of Child Nutrition — January 2023
- Food Budgeting for Early Years Settings — Early Start Nutrition
- Cooking to a Budget — Healthy Eating Advisory Service
- Nunavik Childcare
Every Crumb Counts
Safe, simple ways to store, reheat, and reuse leftovers and cut down on food waste — including safe handling of wild game.
- Food Safety Tips for Leftovers — Health Canada
- Transforming Leftovers into Kid-Friendly Meals — All My Children Daycare
- Safe Food Storage — Health Canada
- Food Safety for Hunting — Indigenous Services Canada
- Food and Nutrition — Government of Canada
- Safe Internal Cooking Temperatures — Health Canada
- Freezing Food: A How-To Guide — Canadian Living
Batch Cooking & Freezing
Approaches for cooking in bulk and freezing well, so busy weeks run smoother and nothing goes to waste.
Indigenous Chefs & Food Providers
Learn from Indigenous chefs and food leaders reclaiming, cooking, and sharing traditional foods — videos and organizations to inspire your kitchen.
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 1
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 2
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 3
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 4
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 5
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 6
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 7 (Short)
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 8
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 9
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Video 10
- Watch: Indigenous Chef Playlist
- NATIFS — North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems
What the Kitchen Already Holds
The kitchen is already full of Indigenous knowledge — often unnamed, often uncelebrated. This section helps cooks see and name the pedagogical and cultural dimensions already present in their everyday work.
- Source one ingredient per week from a local Indigenous grower, harvester, or market
- Display the name of the land your ingredients come from alongside the menu
- Talk about what season a food belongs to, even when it's available year-round
- Share a plant or animal story connected to a key ingredient
- Begin meal prep with a simple acknowledgment of where the food has come from
- Create a visual "thanks to the land" board that changes with each menu
- Introduce the idea of only taking what is needed — portion mindfully, compost with care
- Connect the concept of reciprocity to relationships within the kitchen team
- Invite an Elder or community knowledge keeper to cook with you once a term
- Document recipes using voice and video, not just text — honour the oral tradition
- Ask families to share a dish or ingredient from their own Nation or tradition
- Create a "recipe from memory" series — dishes that live in someone's hands, not a book
- Build your menus around seasonal availability rather than a fixed annual rotation
- Introduce the concept of the moon cycle in menu planning — when is the right time to harvest certain plants?
- Create a seasonal food wheel for your setting — visual and updated each season
- Share the Anishinaabe or Haudenosaunee name for each season alongside your menu plan
From the Kitchen
Into the Room
The cook is not separate from the classroom — they are one of the most powerful educators in the building. These are concrete ways to bridge kitchen knowledge with teachers and children, without adding to anyone's workload.
Send a brief "food story card" to each room with each meal — one sentence about where the main ingredient comes from, what season it belongs to, or what it means culturally. Teachers can read it at meal time.
Offer to bring a raw ingredient into the classroom before cooking — let children smell, touch, and wonder before the food appears on their plate.
Provide a simple provocation card for educators: "Ask the children: what do you think this plant looked like when it was still growing?"
Meet monthly with the teaching team — not to report on the menu, but to plan connections. What are children curious about? What is the room studying? How can the kitchen respond?
Share your cultural knowledge generously but also set boundaries — you are a knowledge holder, not an on-call explainer. You decide what to share and how.
Invite one educator per term to spend 30 minutes in the kitchen with you — learning alongside, not observing from a distance.
Welcome small groups into the kitchen for simple tasks — stirring, sorting beans, tearing herbs. The sensory experience of food preparation is profound early learning.
Let children smell ingredients before they are cooked. Introduce the Anishinaabe or Haudenosaunee name for a food alongside the English name — language is a gift, not a lesson.
Create a kitchen window display that children can see into — demystify where food comes from within the building itself.
- Explore corn, beans, and squash
- Talk about how the plants support one another
- Invite children to touch or observe the ingredients
- Share community-specific teachings with appropriate guidance
- Plant a Three Sisters garden
- Create a classroom recipe card
- Learn relevant language words, community-approved
Teachings vary between Nations and communities and should never be presented as universal.
A Place to Ask, Share
& Learn from One Another
Ask questions, swap recipes, post photos, recommend suppliers, and celebrate wins with cooks from across the network.
Community Guidelines
Around the Table is built on respect, cultural safety, and care for one another. Please review the guidelines before posting.
- Respect
- Confidentiality
- Cultural safety
- No shaming
- No sharing of sacred or restricted knowledge
- Permission before sharing community teachings
- Protecting children's privacy
- Constructive discussion
- Respect for different Nations, communities, and practices
How We Stay Connected
Across Ontario
A network is only as strong as its relationships. Live gatherings and this ongoing rhythm of connection are designed to keep cooks resourced, supported, and growing — without adding unsustainable burden to already full roles.
Welcome to The Gathering Table
Join cooks from across the network for introductions, shared reflections, and a conversation about what support, resources, and relationships this platform should hold. 7:00–8:30pm EST.