ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The Indian Pueblo Kitchen is celebrating Native American Heritage Month in November with a new food option. The restaurant’s “A Taste of the Pueblos” special includes three house-made stews, fresh-baked Pueblo oven bread, fry bread, and a blue corn muffin.
“The Taste of the Pueblos is like a little sampler plate of the traditional stews that we make for our feast days. Our feast days came about to celebrate the patron saints. When the Spanish came, we had to adapt to the religion also, as well as just being able to practice our own ceremonies. And to continue that, we adapted to their patron saints. So our feast days are technically what we celebrate,” said Channing Concho, supervisor server at the Indian Pueblo Kitchen.
Concho’s family is from Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, is part Ohkay Owingeh, and is from the Hopi Tribe in Arizona. She said the items included in the dish and those found in other dishes on the menu contain indigenous ingredients such as corn, beans, and squash – known as the three sisters – along with blue corn, bison, and more. Some of the ingredients are sourced from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s Resilience Garden.
“Our food is important because our food and our story times happen around the kitchen table; that’s where we are most vulnerable. And so to be able to share food with not just our family, but with other visitors, we get to learn who each other are and how similar we are,” said Concho.
Concho has worked at the Indian Pueblo Kitchen for 15 years and has served guests from all over the world, including some famous people such as former President Barack Obama, model and activist Quannah Chasinghorse, and members of the show “Reservation Dogs.” Cincho says, “You can tell I love my job. I think one of my biggest highlights is just to be able to share my culture with other people who don’t know it and to be able to show them the acknowledgment of our tribes here in New Mexico.”
The Indian Pueblo Kitchen, which is located inside the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, is owned and operated by New Mexico’s 19 Pueblos. To learn more about the kitchen and the cultural center, click here.
