PORT ANGELES — The Peninsula College Longhouse will host a new exhibit, “Salish Bounty: Traditional Native American Foods of Puget Sound,” beginning Tuesday.
Focusing on the revival of traditional Native foods, Salish Bounty is co-curated by Burke Museum archaeologists with co-curators Warren King George (Muckleshoot/Upper Skagit Indian Tribe) and Elizabeth Swanaset (Nooksack/Cowichan/Laq’amel Tribes).
It will be displayed in the Peninsula College Longhouse through March 3 and in the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s Red Cedar Hall from March 6 through April 14.
Longhouse gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
“Salish Bounty” — composed of historic photo images, a map and informative text printed on freestanding banners — reminds viewers that food isn’t a solitary pursuit.
“Cooking and eating are things we do with other people and express our cultural history and values,” the college said in a news release.
The exhibit also includes a four-minute audiovisual DVD offering archaeological insight into Coast Salish food resources spanning thousands of years along the Duwamish River.
Knowledge of Coast Salish cuisine has been passed down from the elders and supplemented by archaeological and historical research.
More than 280 kinds of plants and animals have been identified as ingredients in this cuisine.
Contemporary Coast Salish cooks incorporate both traditional and newly introduced ingredients, sharing traditions to create healthy alternatives for families and communities still struggling with the loss of lands and waters, drastically changed lifestyles and imposed industrial foods, the college said.
Salish Bounty provides a local perspective on myriad 21st-century food issues and how, as in many places around the world, the revival of Coast Salish food traditions embodies the re-establishment of more healthful and sustainable practices that honor land and community.
For more information, contact Sadie Crowe at scrowe@pencol.edu or 360-417-7992.
