Understanding American Food Traditions

The American Center in Moscow invites you to join us for an exciting culinary experience, Understanding American Food Traditions. Chef Craig will guide participants on a journey through American culinary history, exploring the rich cultural and familial significance of food traditions. This live session will include a special cooking demonstration featuring a simple Native American dish, followed by an interactive Q&A. About the speaker: Chef Nephi Craig has 26 years of culinary experience in America and abroad in Canada, Mexico, London, Germany, Brazil, and Japan. Nephi Craig is an enrolled member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and is half Navajo. Chef Craig is the founder of the Native American Culinary Association or NACA, an organization/network that is dedicated to the research, refinement, and development of Native American Cuisine. Chef Nephi Craig provides training, workshops, and lecture sessions on Indigenous Foods for Health to schools, restaurants, universities, treatment centers, behavioral health agencies, and tribal entities from across America and abroad. Chef Craig served as Executive Chef of the Sunrise Park Resort Hotel. During Chef Craig’s nine-year tenure at Sunrise Park Resort, Craig and his White Mountain Apache culinary team achieved many national and international benchmarks in establishing a culture of Indigenous Foods across North America. Chef Craig was featured in the James Beard Award-winning film ‘Gather’ in 2020, which showcases Craig’s leadership in the Indigenous Food Sovereignty movement now spreading across the United States and around the world. Chef Craig is currently the Nutritional Recovery Program Coordinator & Executive Chef at the Rainbow Treatment Center at Café Gozhóó on the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona. Chef Nephi Craig is a 2023 James Beard Foundation Nominee for ‘Best Chef Southwest’ and also holds an honorary degree of PhD in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.