Mark Trahant
ICT
Chef Nico Albert Williams is passionate about duck eggs.
“We have such an idea of what traditional food is in Native communities, and a lot of times those foods are survival foods like fried bread, or foods that are ingredients that were brought to us through colonization, or through the food ration programs,” said Williams. “Now the movement is to reconnect to ancestral foods as a way of healing.
Duck eggs are a part of that.
“Chickens are not indigenous to North America if our ancestors were eating eggs they would have been eating duck eggs,” she said. “Ducks are an indigenous animal to our region and they were a food source … so when I’m making traditional foods I like to substitute duck eggs.”
The chef says they are more delicious and richer than chicken eggs, ideal for baked goods, custards and omelets.
“It’s just a really exciting time as a chef as a Native chef specifically everybody in even in mainstream culture and in our native communities is looking for ways to feel healthier, to live longer, to live better lives, to increase our quality of life and it’s just very beautiful to me that our ancestors have laid the groundwork for that.
Chef Williams talks about her work on the set of Killers of the Flower Moon, cooking for Leonardo DiCaprio. And why the story is so important.
For more information: Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness.
Correction: The original broadcast version of this story misspelled the chef’s name on screen.
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