March 11th Wild Salmon Cook-out

Wild Salmon Cook-out: Stand with Northwest Tribes to Stop GE Fish!

SAT March 11, 10:30AM – 12:30PM

Location: wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House

University of Washington, 4249 Whitman Court, Seattle, WA 98195

Join us for a salmon cook-out to stop genetically engineered fish! Community Alliance for Global Justice is collaborating with the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project and the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance to host a community gathering to learn more about how GE salmon threatens a cultural and ecological keystone species in our region.

We will especially highlight Northwest tribal relationships to salmon, and how biotech companies are threatening treaty rights. In 2014, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians passed a resolution opposing the introduction of GE salmon, and the Quinault Tribe is one of 12 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the FDA for approving AquaBounty’s GE salmon.

Cook-Out: Enjoy cooking demonstration, lunch and a salmon tasting!

Speakers: Fish cooks and Valerie Segrest, Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project

We look forward to sparking convivial conversation and community engagement around this important environmental, food justice, and Indigenous Rights issue. We are pleased to host this event at the UW Intellectual House, whose traditional name – wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ –  comes from the Luhshootseed language and is phonetically pronounced “wah-sheb-altuh.”

Sponsored by Community Alliance for Global Justice, Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, with generous support from the Muckleshoot Tribe Charity Fund Grant Program.

Community Partners:

This event is FREE and open to the public. PLEASE RSVP: Email fjp@cagj.org

Help us publicize! Share the Facebook Event.

For more info, contact CAGJ: fjp@cagj.org, 205-405-4600.

Tasting Lab #2, Kitchen Insurrections

1.Do you think the hearth still has a central role? What will the hearth look like in 2020? Kitchen-talk?

As we move further and further into an efficiency/ productivity-based model we move away from the hearth’s central role. Discussions and family dinners around tables are often pushed aside for more “efficient” or “productive” uses of time. A hearth in 2020 might be a restaurant table or a living room tv area.

2. Which spices did you blend? Why?

Cardamom, Cumin, Hungarian Paprike, Clove, Vanilla, Salt.

The acidity  (oranges) worked well with the warmth of my spice blend, as did the kale.

I chose my blend primarily by smell, looking for warmth and contrasting flavors to create a unique blend.

 

 

Genetically Engineered Salmon Cause Threat to Wild Salmon Populations and Local Tribes

 

In November 2015, the FDA granted the approval of genetically engineered (GE) salmon developed by the Massachusetts-based biotech company Aquabounty. Known as “AquaAdvantage salmon”, the GE salmon is engineered with the growth hormone genes from a Chinook salmon and the DNA and anti-freeze genes of an eelpout. According to Aquabounty, these changes in the genetic makeup of the fish cause the production of growth hormones year-round and create a fish that grows at twice the rate of a normal salmon.

 

From fish cannibalism to wild salmon depletion

The goal of the AquaAdvantage salmon is to boost productivity – and therefore profit for Aquabounty – but in doing so, numerous risks come into play. Though AquaBounty has attempted to assure the public that the risk of farmed salmon escaping into wild populations is low, each year over 2 million farmed salmon escape from open-water net pens into the north Atlantic, in turn straining ecosystems and outcompeting wild salmon populations, and in some cases causing the fish to resort to cannibalism. Research studies have concluded that if fertile male GE salmon were to escape from captivity, they would likely succeed in breeding and passing their mutated genes into the wild. In a recent study, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that if a release of 60 GE salmon into a wild population were to occur, a populace of 60,000 wild fish could become extinct in less than 40 salmon generations. If GE salmon are released, it is likely that they will join  the millions of salmon that escape yearly, putting entire ecosystems and populations at even higher risks than they are today.

 

Murky waters surround regulation

AquaAdvantage salmon are the first genetically engineered animal meant for consumption to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Beyond the risk of decimating entire salmon populations and turning them into frankenfish, with genetically engineered foods also comes the high risk of health problems in humans, in part from heavy antibiotic use and hormones in the breeding. At this point in time, there is a lack of independent scientific research on these salmon as the FDA decided the fish are safe to eat based solely on data provided by AquaBounty.

 While the FDA has determined that no additional labeling of AquAdvantage Salmon is required, but could be voluntary, WA State Senator Maria Cantwell issued a statement in December 2015 condemning the FDA’s approval of GE salmon, supporting the development of labeling guidelines, and requiring GE labeling for these fish. However, without stronger regulation and labeling requirements, companies that decide to sell AquaAdvantage salmon could choose not to label the GE fish on grocery store shelves, leaving consumers in the dark.

 

Fighting back

Following a GE-free seafood campaign organized by Friends of the Earth and a coalition of over 30 health, food safety and fishing groups, over 60 grocery store chains nationwide have committed to keeping genetically modified salmon off their shelves, including, Costco, Safeway, Kroger, and Trader Joe’s. CAGJ played a role in getting Costco to make this commitment, which it publically announced on the day that the FDA approved GE salmon.

 In 2014, The Muckleshoot Tribe and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) called on the FDA to deny all applications to distribute genetically engineered salmon in the U.S. without prior completion of an Environmental Impact Statement and scientific review that sufficiently consulted with Northwest Treaty Tribes. Virginia Cross, Muckleshoot Tribal Council Chair, stated that “genetically engineered salmon not only threaten our way of life, but could also adversely affect our treaty rights to take fish at our usual and accustomed places.”

 The National Congress of American Indians joined the effort, and passed a resolution to “oppose the introduction of and sale of genetically engineered salmon in the United states if the FDA decides to allow it and requests tribal consultation on the matter before any action by the FDA.” In July 2016, The Quinault Indian Nation of the Northwest and 11 other plaintiffs joined in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the approval of AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon.

 Being that the native people of the Pacific Northwest region are often referred to as “The Salmon People”, it comes as little surprise that local tribes have been outspoken against questions of genetically modified fish. Valerie Segrest, educator and member of the Muckleshoot tribe stated that “The Coast Salish people have organized their lives around salmon for thousands of years, We see them as our greatest teachers, giving their lives for us to have life. Corporate ownership of such a cultural keystone is a direct attack on our identity and the legacy our ancestors have left us. Absent indisputable evidence that there is no harm in human consumption, wild fish habitat or the treaty-protected fishing rights of Northwest Indians the FDA must not permit the promised increase of production efficiency to trump sound science or fishing rights and culture of Northwest Indians.”

 Salmon are vital to the social, economic and spiritual lives of native peoples across the Northwest, making it necessary to study the economic, social and environmental impacts of genetically engineering what has for thousands of years been a cultural staple. It is essential to let corporations know that people, indigenous culture, native wildlife populations, and ecosystems must come before their profits.

 

Learn more at CAGJ’s Wild Salmon Cook-out

SAT March 11, 10:30AM – 12:30PM

Location: wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House

University of Washington, 4249 Whitman Court, Seattle, WA 98195

 

Spice Up Your Life

Triggering Passages

“In a more abstract sense orality gives the cook her access to power as well; while her mouth may be the subject to middle-class discipline, she has access to her employers’ mouths as well. In fact the cook’s entire worth hinges on her mouth: it metonymizes her essential value as a cook.” (Tompkins 2012: 49)

“Why was such value assigned to spices, particularly in the Old World? Although the answer is complicated (and entire books have been devoted to this subject), one answer is that spices were valued because they were extremely difficult to obtain.” (Newman 2013: 18)

News Media Context

Who Owns Southern Food?

“It is well documented that one of the significant jobs of the house slaves was to prepare the meals for the master, his family and his guests. Many of the recipes that have been passed down for generations in both black and white families and are the backbone of Southern cooking were born out of slavery. It is not the content of the recipes that is missing, but the context.”

 

“But their children didn’t always embrace the “good old days.” My mother didn’t see Southern food as a badge of honor, she was striving for middle class sameness. There were so many rules of what I could eat inside our home, but never out, especially around white people. We hid our culture in plain sight. It was as if eating lasagna and forgoing black-eyed peas was going to make or break our upward mobility. Food and race in this country are both powerful currencies.”

http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/04/who-owns-southern-food/

Response:

Reading Newman’s chapter on the spice trade I was brought back to a conversation had last week with classmates in regards to the designation of people of color as “spices” in the lives of the white. Newman emphasizes the difficulty in obtaining spices as a substantial rationale for the high value of spices, but given the context of recent discussions and research it is hard to not interpret part of the appeal as a desire for the “exotic” or “the other”.

In contemporary American culture it is not uncommon for “vanilla” to be used colloquially to imply blandness or whiteness, while terms like “spicy”, are used often in regards to latina women or “saucy” in regards to black women, acknowledging their exciting yet inherently disruptive “spice” as a potential threat to whiteness, only to be used in moderation.

Tompkins’s exploration of the hearth of Antebellum America and its symbolic and literal focal point for analysis prompted me to think more critically than I ever had before on the class implications of architectural layouts, particularly in regards to the kitchen and its placement in the home.

In the quoted passage, I was struck by Tompkins’s analysis of the power existing inherently within the black chef’s mouth and the chef’s being taught to “watch her mouth” while at the same time learning to inhabit the mouths of her employers. As Tompkins quotes on the following page “ The Cook’s power lies, here, in exercising orality: in eating and speaking. Both, by presenting the possibility of poisoning, project a sense of the unconscious power dynamic at work in the Antebellum household.” (Tompkins 2012: 50).