Crystal Wahpepah

Kickapoo chef

Crystal Wahpepah is an indigenous American chef. She was the first indigenous chef on the cooking program Chopped.[1] Wahpepah has a Native American woman owned catering business.[2] She opened her own restaurant with to reclaim Native American cuisine.[3] She received the Indigenous Artist Activist Award.[1]

Crystal Wahpepah
Ramsay in 2022
Born
EducationLe Cordon Bleu
StyleNative American cuisine

Wahpepah was born and raised in Oakland, California.[1] She is a member of the Kickapoo, Sac, and Fox tribes from Oklahoma.[4] As a child, she cooked with her older relatives.[4]

Career

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Wahpepah loves cooking. She attended the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.[1] She studied French cooking.[1] In 2010, she got a place at a program that helps women of color start food-related businesses.[1]

She opened a catering business.[4] Large companies like Google and Facebook have hired her to cook.[4] Even though the San Francisco Bay Area had many kinds of chefs, there were no indigenous food restaurants.[1] She traveled around the United States and learned more about Native farming and cooking.[4] Eventually she opened her own restaurant.

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Mindess, Anna. "Crystal Wahpepah is clearing a path for indigenous chefs." nosh. 2020-08-19
  2. "For the Love of Native Foods: Chef Crystal Wahpepah". www.culturalsurvival.org. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
  3. "Rare and highly anticipated Native American restaurant debuts in Oakland". The Mercury News. 2021-11-26. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Kickapoo chef honors her heritage with oakland's first indigenous restaurant (2021). . Washington, D.C.: NPR. Retrieved on 2021-12-07.