Apache Chef Nephi Craig says cooking saved his life

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is a leader in the movement of Native American cuisine. Eating, cooking, and teaching about that food saved his life. He became addicted to alcohol and drugs at an early age. After his first DUI, the judge gave him the option of three months probation if he agreed to get and keep a job or go to college. He opted for attending Scottsdale Community College, where he took cooking classes. He eventually got a job, learned about restaurant kitchens, and eventually became a chef at the finest fine dining restaurant in Phoenix. But he also kept getting fired from jobs for being drunk, hungover, not showing up, or being in jail. During time in jail, he was lucky to get work in the kitchen, where he learned how to design meals with whatever food they were given. When he got out, he kept relapsing. He completed nine rehabs and ran away from five others. Now he's drawing on the more hellish parts of his life, as well as his expertise to be the nutritional recovery program coordinator at the tribe-owned Rainbow Treatment Center, working with people recovering from substance abuse. As a behavioral health technician, he collaborates on treatment plans for the center's clients. In 2021, he opened Café Gozhóó, a restaurant on the reservation that's a place for the community to eat and talk. For members of the staff, it functions as a vocational training program for the treatment center. He also founded the Native American Culinary Association, NACA, and now he's written a memoir called Our Knives Will Save Us, Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef. His mother is White Mountain Apache. His father is Dinah Navajo. Nephi grew up on both reservations.
Nephi Craig, welcome to Fresh Air, and congratulations on your 15 years of sobriety. That is really great. So before we get into your personal story, which is pretty interesting, let's talk a little bit about food, the foods that are indigenous to Native people and to America, and to the Americas. Let's start with tomato because I know learning that tomato was an indigenous food really meant a lot to you.
Yeah, it did. I had no idea that the tomato was an indigenous cultivar. Growing up, I think it's pretty common for a lot of people to feel that way. And for me, as a young kid, I was studying in culinary school and I came across this info that it was native to the Americas and it just brought this really big smile to my face. I was like, wow, this tomato is not Italian, it's native like me. And that was empowering because as you're in cooking school, you're being taught all of these other world cuisines. And as a Native American in Arizona, you don't really see yourself represented in really anything, let alone cookbooks and culinary school curriculum. So that was a neat point of validation for me that grew into many other interests. I want to hear about acorns because that's a real staple. And I don't think about acorns and eating them.
I see squirrels eating them all the time. And Apaches. And Apaches. Well, acorns are very special because they can be eaten all over North America, on the West Coast and on the East Coast and across the United States. They have to be leached, of course, which is a process to pull out the real tannic bitterness from the acorns. What makes our acorns special is that they don't necessarily have to be leached. They suppose they could be, but they've always been harvested by our people along the Mogollon Rim in Arizona for thousands of years. They can be eaten right out of the shell. They're ground up into powders and to like a yellow acorn flower. It's added to a lot of different things from like sprinkled on roasted meats or cooked especially cooked in stews. It's really good like that. What about acorn soup? We refer to as acorn stew. So it's usually a lot of bones whether it's beef or elk or deer chunks of meat. It's simmered for a long time till it's really soft. Then the acorn flower is sprinkled in towards the end. Sometimes squash is added and a lot of times they'll be like flour dumplings or corn dumplings added in. It's real simple, real homey but really distinct Apache flavors. You often make that with racket bread. What is that? It's a traditional Apache bread. It's called racket bread because it's cooked on a tool that looks like a tennis racket. It has this long metal handle and there's this wire circle at the end of it. There's steel grates or wire strands woven to make it look like a long tennis racket. That is placed directly on top of hot coals. Apache ladies usually just stretch out the dough and put it right on the coals and it puffs up really quick. It's really delicious.