A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior

by Crystal Wahpepah, Tommy Orange (Foreword)

From an acclaimed Indigenous chef comes an extraordinary cookbook that weaves powerful storytelling with 125 intertribal recipes to heal our bodies and restore our foodways—featuring a foreword by bestselling novelist and fellow Oaklandian Tommy Orange.

Chef Crystal Wahpepah has used her growing platform to tell the little-known history of Oakland's tight-knit Native American communities, which were relocated from reservations across the country to the San Francisco Bay area in the 1950s. Crystal's powerful message to reconnect to our foodways and transform generational trauma into strength as well as her healing dishes have been seen on Food Network’s Chopped and Beating Bobby Flay.

The rise of corporate agriculture around the world relies on singular and often genetically modified monocultures plus lots of chemicals and soil additives to produce massive crop yields. And while this approach may economically make sense on paper to feed multitudes at the lowest price point possible, it has harmed our physical health, emotional well-being, and the very creation that supports life. This truth applies not just to Indigenous people, who have been harmed by the federal commodified foods program, but to all of us who have come to rely on cheap and easy processed foods to feed our families. We no longer get the nutrients we need from our food and spend lots of money on supplementing our diets. We develop chronic diseases that can be avoided and even cured through eating habits.

Eat with the seasons, cure your disconnection with the land, and cook colorful, delicious food rooted in the oldest traditions

Three Sisters Veggie BowlsSweet Blue Cornbread with Huckleberry CompoteIndigenous Popcorn Balls with Edible FlowersStrawberry-Sumac Salad with Maple-Sage VinaigretteBison Roast with Chokeberry RubSmoked Salmon Dip with Red Chilies and ChipsAcorn Muffins, and much more
A Feather and a Fork includes 125 recipes developed in collaboration with ethnobotanist and food sovereignty advocate Linda Black Elk to explore the environmental, spiritual, physical, and social benefits of each dish as well as raise awareness of and support for indigenous food producers who are preserving heirloom foods and traditions.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Indigenous

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 17, 2026

Reviews

[Melitta Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels weird to rate and review a cookbook....but there's a first for everything.

A book club was reading this at the University I work at due to having Crystal as a Chef in Residence for our Food Sovereignty Program.

It was really fun to just chat with folks about the cookbook itself as we had planned on having a potluck for the last meeting, and we were challenged in bringing something we made from Crystal's cookbook. I made a Rabbit Pozole, and was inspired to make a huckleberry lemonade.

I really enjoyed and am pretty sure I tabbed almost all the "Good Medicine" notes in the recipes. They gave insight on some ingredients I didn't know before and wanted to do more digging in.

I understand her sentiments of re-learning to connect with our food. Particularly our native foods, and appreciated that she used "native" ingredients (duck eggs, rather than chicken eggs, maple syrup as sweetener instead of honey or cane sugar), and stop having the reliance on sugar or salt and embrace the earthy flavor of native foods. But I kind of wanted there to be a way to ease into it, as opposed to jumping right into the deep end. I also felt she didn't mention that until later in the book, so while I skipped ahead to make the rabbit pozole in time for the potluck, I added more seasoning because I didn't quite understand why we wouldn't.

I really enjoyed the pozole I made, I don't work with rabbit often so it was fun to work with that again. Another recipe someone else made that I would love to do myself at some point is the Chai pudding. The person who made it at the potluck added a blackberry compote to the top that was super good.

There's a couple other recipes I'd love to try and I'd love to try and challenge myself to use less salt and and just enjoy the food as is. I feel like I'm getting there. My husband recently told me he can tell I'm going to like something by how "complicated" it is (ie little to nothing was processed, everything was made by hand) and I like that that's my palate already.

Because I haven't read another cookbooks let alone rated them, I have nothing to compare this to, so I'm giving it a 4 out of 5 for now.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the authors presenting indigenous recipes, but this isn’t a cookbook for the everyday cook. There are many ingredients that are hard for me to find in my city (the largest in my state) such as dried hominy, acorn flour, fiddleheads, venison, and choke cherries. Additionally, the photos aren’t the most appetizing looking. There are a few recipes I might try such as the wild rice pilaf.