Chef Shane Chartrand combines his Red Seal French culinary training with Indigenous traditions to offer a fresh perspective on Canadian cuisine.
Through his award-winning cookbook and travels across Indigenous communities, he aims to highlight Indigenous food as a vital part of Canada’s culinary heritage, fostering understanding and reconciliation.
Indigenous Food Stories: Redefining Canadian Cuisine Through Reconciliation
Chef Shane Chartrand is on a mission to change the conversation about food in Canada. Trained as a Red Seal chef in the French tradition, Chartrand is a sought-after speaker, judge and media personality, and he’s the author of cookbook Tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine, which won the 2020 Innovation Award for Canada at the Gourmand International Best in the World Awards.
Chartrand says he’s been thinking recently about the Canada Food Guide as an opportunity for Truth and Reconciliation.
“The existing guide is like one side of a coin,” he says. “I see Indigenous food as the other side of that coin. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could have our food and our ways also acknowledged as the food and ways of this country?” Having travelled extensively to Canadian Indigenous communities from coast to coast to coast, hunting, fishing, trapping and cooking with the locals, he’s probably just the person to do it.
Want to support his mission? Bring him to your event as a speaker or workshop leader, buy his beautiful cookbook or host his exclusive chef’s experience, which will immerse you in a fine dining and storytelling experience. Learn more at The Tawâw. Watch for this captivating personality on upcoming television appearances and speaking engagements and follow him on Instagram at @shanemchartrand.
Check out Shane’s Master Class recipe for Seared Rainbow Trout Wrapped in Sautéed Greens.
Read more Indigenous Food Stories: Chef Ian Gladue, Heather Morigeau and Little Chief’s Bison Program.
