The rise of indigenous restaurants in Canada since the 1970s has helped to surface the foodways of indigenous peoples but has also helped to highlight the colonial repression of these older foods and cultures. In this week’s The Hungry Historians, we discuss the contrast of settler colonialism and indigenous resistance through the role played by restaurants. L. Sasha Gora wrote on this subject in her 2025 book, Culinary Claims: Indigenous Restaurant Politics in Canada, which was published by University of Toronto Press.

Our conversation with Sasha ranges from the politics of colonialism as played out through food to the purpose and symbolism of indigenous restaurants, including just what we really mean by the term indigenous restaurant.  

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.