Indigenous chef and educator Jessica Walks First delivered a lecture about her culinary “journey to healing” to Northwestern faculty and students at Harris Hall Thursday evening.

Walks First is the executive chef and owner of Ketapanen Kitchen, a Native American-owned catering company in Chicago. At NU, she teaches Indigenous foodways as a Radulovacki Visiting Scholar.

An enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, Walks First was born on the Menominee reservation and raised in Chicago. She said her mother was central to her home and taught her to cook at a young age.

Walks First emphasized the importance of telling her story, as well as the opportunity for “people like me to be in spaces like this.”

“To understand my journey of healing is — food is medicine, and the work that I do is healing — you have to know my story, and my story is not an easy one,” Walks First said. 

She said she was born into a family shaped by generational trauma, with a grandfather who attended boarding school. Walks First said her family has a history of homelessness and alcoholism. 

She has also had to grieve the deaths of close family members, including her brother, mother and most recently, her oldest son. After losing her son, Walks First temporarily stepped away from her culinary work because, as she said, it “takes heart.”

Walks First said she chose to return to the kitchen and continue her healing after the women from her community visited her home, wrapped her in a healing blanket and surrounded her with care. The women, she said, reminded her that she could apply the same truths she teaches to others to herself: that food can heal the mind, body and spirit. 

Walks First said teaching Indigenous foodways at NU has been a healing experience for her, helping her recognize her belonging and value to the community. 

She said her place in the classroom comes from the culinary knowledge passed down to her from her ancestors. In her class, “Indigenous Foodways: Cultivating Mind, Body and Soul,” she said she grew to love all eight of her students. 

“They are amazing, intelligent, beautiful, young minds,” said Walks First. “I’ve learned more from them than they have from me. I got to see my world and my work through their eyes. That’s a gift.” 

Walks First’s student Weinberg junior Serina Wood cooks with other students in a community style. Wood said students take responsibility for different components of a dish, which are then combined to create a single meal.

She said that even as an Indigenous person herself, she had not considered food as a form of spiritual and mental healing until taking the class.

“It’s amazing that an Indigenous person has such an important role in the broad Chicago community, that somebody with no educator background can be somebody that’s such an educator to us as Indigenous peoples,” Wood said. “I feel like it’s really important to have that representation.”

A sense of representation and the value of healing align with why NU Global Health Program invited Walks First to teach, said anthropology and global health studies Prof. Noelle Sullivan. 

She said the NU Global Health Program faculty hoped to strengthen connections with local Native communities and wanted students to experience Indigenous foodways firsthand to understand the relationship between food, culture and healing. 

Communication freshman Diego Mora, who attended the event, said Walks First’s message about the power of actions through food resonated with him because of his experience of interacting with his grandmother in the kitchen to prepare food.

“It’s not through language, it’s through actions,” Mora said. “She exudes what it means to be a strong human being. She showcases how strong you must be to consistently grow as a human being and face vulnerabilities. It’s very motivating and very inspiring.”

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