Members of the state’s Indigenous communities will gather together for a cook-off focused on the native-to-Michigan grain manoomin.
The second annual manoomin soup cook-off on Saturday at Detroit’s North American Indian Association will serve as a forum to lift up the environmental dangers of nuclear energy. The event was organized to bring attention to the ongoing impacts of a nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Japan in 2011, which has continuously released contaminated, radioactive water. Due to the effects of the contamination on fish, the catch is just one-fifth of what it was before the disaster. The gathering also seeks to raise awareness about the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Michigan’s Monroe County.
“The Fermi 2 reactor is the same model as the Fukushima reactor and has some of the similar design flaws that led to the meltdown,” said Jesse Deer In Water, creator of the cook-off. The event, he said, is for “highlighting, naming, and honoring the damage to the earth in the water and the fish that still have high radioactivity in them whilst at the same time acknowledging that we have similar potentials for catastrophe here.”
Event organizers are aiming to promote efforts to protect the land and water and pre-colonization lifeways, including traditional wild rice harvest.
Wild rice is an essential part of the origin story for Great Lakes tribes according to some teachings which say Ojibwe people, migrating from the East, were told to establish where they found food that grew in water. They found wild rice in Lake Superior and made the region home. But over time, wild rice has been decimated through industrial agriculture, mining, and, more recently, flooding associated with climate change. In the 1800s, there were 212 historical wild rice sites in Michigan, but now only 14 are known to exist, according to Barb Barton, author of “Manoomin: The Story of Wild Rice in Michigan.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation in December making wild rice the state’s official native grain, the first state to designate a native grain. The designation came after years of advocacy from various Indigenous groups, said Jesse Deer In Water, creator of the cook-off.
“It’s important to acknowledge that it’s the original grain, before they were growing wheat, before they were growing corn on mass scales, [manoomin] grew on mass scales in almost every waterbody and river on the Great Lakes,” he said. “But due to colonialism, the destruction of urban land, and the disrespect of Indigenous lifeways, a lot of that’s been erased.”
The event will feature speakers from Dynamite Hill Farms, an Ojibwe food producer on the Keweenaw Bay in northern Michigan that harvests wild rice and taps for maple syrup. Rice from Dynamite Hill Farms will be provided to contestants to cook with.
Another portion of the event will focus on the importance of protecting the Great Lakes from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are known as “forever chemicals,” as well as radioactive particles. Previous research studies have found high levels of PFAS in Great Lakes fish, and even higher levels in fish from the Detroit River. PFAS are a class of man-made substances that have been linked to kidney and liver disease and other health issues in laboratory animals, and are also a possible carcinogen.
“It’s important to repopulate the Great Lakes with the wild rice but it’s also important to protect the Great Lakes from forever chemicals and radioactive particles that get in the water and connects and bonds themselves with wild rice,” said Jesse Deer In Water, who is an organizer for Citizens’ Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT), an Indigenous anti-nuclear organization formed after an accident at DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant released a million gallons of radioactive waste in the 1990s. Fermi 2 accounts for approximately 20% of the electricity DTE generates in Michigan, according to the utility’s website.
The Michigan Wild Rice Initiative and the U-M Water Center, including representatives from Michigan’s environmental department, are working to develop a statewide tribal-state Manoomin Stewardship Plan. The plan is expected to be finalized this year.
The free soup cook-off will take place at the North American Indian Association building on 22720 Plymouth Road. First, second, and third-place winners will be given cash prizes; all contestants will be given gifts. Manoomin will be available to buy at the event.
“Anything that’s going to bring a community together in a good way is something that we want to support and this wild rice cook off is one of those events,” said Brian Moore, director of the North American Indian Association of Detroit, a nonprofit created in 1940 to provide social and recreation opportunities and employment resources to Native Americans in Detroit.
“It’s a food that we all enjoy to eat and make and there’s a lot of pride that goes into different family recipes and it brings people together,” Moore said.
As of 2020, there were approximately 30,000 American Indian people in Metro Detroit, according to the National Park Service. Moore said the number is likely closer to 40,000.
“All of our community has concerns about [environmental issues],”said Moore. “[The event] gives CRAFT the opportunity to inform them about the issues that they’re fighting for.”
The Manoomin Soup Cook-off: March 9 at North American Indian Association building, 22720 Plymouth Road in Detroit. Doors open at 1 p.m. Judging begins at 3 p.m.