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The Native American Food Truck Festival will showcase 17 Native-owned and co-owned food trucks alongside community resources, and local artists and musicians. More than 70 vendors will be at Harriet Island Regional Park in St. Paul on Saturday.
Mariah Grant is the founder of the festival and co-owner of Trickster Tacos, a food truck specializing in Native American fusion dishes, such as frybread tacos, which have the ingredients of a taco on a fluffy piece of frybread.
Grant says attendees will be able to find traditional Native American dishes, fusions and fair foods.
“Traditional foods are going to be more of your wild rice bowls, your honey chicken bowls, your Indian tacos, berries,” Grant said. “Wojapi is a very traditional food."
Wojapi is a berry sauce that is most often made from chokecherries, blueberries or raspberries.
The idea of having a food truck festival focused on Native American culture came to Grant last year after Trickster Tacos served food at several events across the Twin Cities area.
“One of the best things about the Twin Cities is it’s a melting pot,” she said. “There are all kinds of cultural celebrations that happen here. So, we were just wondering, ‘Why don't we have a Native American food festival?’”
Kimberly Reid is a co-organizer and a friend of Grant’s. She also co-owns Steven D’s, a patty and hamburger melts food truck. With an array of vendors set to be at the park, she emphasizes the community aspect the festival will bring.
“It's not just food, it's not just entertainment, it's also resources and then community. We're here, we're one. Let's get together, let's celebrate that. Let's eat some good food and just sit around and talk to each other,” said Reid.
For Grant, the festival highlights the urban Native community’s growth throughout the years. She moved to the Twin Cities area a decade ago and has noted the different opportunities that have popped up since then, such as Native-led events or entrepreneurship.
While the festival has “food truck” in its title, she wanted to give opportunity to the entire community to be involved.
“The goal for this was wholeheartedly to support local Native businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and kind of anyone and everyone in our community that we work with on a daily basis,” said Grant. “We want to help uplift and support them.”
Reid, who moved to Minnesota 25 years ago, agrees with Grant in uplifting the state’s Native communities.
“This is home. When you're with the Native population, you're with family,” she said.
Live performances of music, dance and comedy will be held throughout the day beginning with a toddler’s dance special. The festival will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
More information can be found on the festival’s event page.
Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
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