Growing tradition

And founders hope the newly opened Desert Rain Cafe will make a difference in the health of the people.

Before the 1960s, Type 2 diabetes was not the health crisis it is today, when more than 50 percent of O'odham people have the disease. Children as young as 6 have been known to suffer from diabetes, according to Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA), the organization behind the cafe. TOCA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a healthy, culturally vital and sustainable Tohono O'Odham community. It is the force behind the Desert Rain.

"I always thought diabetes was bad in Oklahoma until I came to the Tohono O'odham Reservation," said Loretta Oden, who came from the Sooner state to be the cafe's pre-opening consulting chef.

Tristan Reader, co-founder and co-director of TOCA, said the organization wanted to get the healthy traditional foods back into the communities and came up with the idea of the cafe.

"We aren't opening a restaurant," Reader said. "We are promoting traditional foods."

The traditional foods of the O'odham people are squash, tepary beans, cholla buds, prickly pear cactus, saguaro fruit and corn. Reader said that in the 1930s, 1.6 million pounds of tepary beans were harvested a year; by 1999, that was down to 100 pounds a year.

It was with that realization that TOCA began to harvest the traditional foods on various O'odham community farms, Reader said.

"You can't eat what you can't get," he said. "We needed to regrow and reproduce traditional foods to keep it alive."

Reader said TOCA asked Oden to be the consulting chef because of her restaurant experience. Oden, a 5-foot, blue-eyed Potawatomi woman with long, snow-white hair and an Oklahoma accent, has worked with TOCA for six years, participating in such events as the Celebration of Basketry and Native Foods Festival. She was leery when TOCA first asked her to help with the cafe.

"I thought to myself, 'A cafe in Sells, Arizona? Who is going to come to a cafe in such an isolated place?' But by golly we've made it work."

The décor speaks of the country and the people. The mustard yellow walls of the cafe are filled with paintings of O'odham people harvesting and farming. In the corners of the cafe there are glass cases filled with handmade baskets.

But it is the food that really speaks to the traditions of the community.

The mission of the cafe has three parts to it: Each dish must contain at least one traditional food; it must be prepared with the utmost respect for the food that I'itoi, the O'odham creator, provided to sustain the people of the desert; and it must be educational about healthy traditional foods.

"There isn't a deep fryer in the kitchen, and everything is grilled, baked, roasted or sautéed," Oden said.

She added that the traditional foods help regulate blood sugar levels and control diabetes. Also, the tepary beans are high in protein compared to other beans, and the syrup from the agave is used as a sweetener that is four times sweeter than sugar but is very low on the glycemic level. Oden also uses mesquite flour for baked goods and olive oil for cooking.

"When we say traditional food, we mean food that's been around for 100 years," Reader said. "Popovers (also known as fry bread) don't count."

"The Nation is really fortunate to have the cafe," said Jennie Becenti, manager of Healthy O'odham People Promotion (H.O.P.P.) "It is something we have waited so long for, and now it is finally here."

Oden first became familiar with the O'odham traditional food when she was filming for the Native American Cultural and Culinary Adventure Seasoned with Spirit series called "A Native Cook's Journey," a five-part PBS series that premiered in 2006.

For one of the episodes, she stayed at the Saguaro Fruit Harvest Camp in Saguaro National Park West. She learned how to harvest and make saguaro fruit syrup and jam.

"It was great cooking and sleeping outside," she said. "I am now fascinated with saguaros and how much they resemble people."

Oden got into the restaurant business by accident. In 1993, the single mother moved to Santa Fe, N.M., and, once there, decided to open the Corn Dance Cafe.

"I had to make a living and thought to myself, 'What do I know how to do best?' Cook," she said.

Oden said she used strictly foods indigenous to America such as wild rice, bison, quail, corn, beans and squash. She did not serve chicken or other meat, and 90 percent of the time she used very little dairy. The cafe landed Oden on Barbara Pool Fenzl's PBS series "Savor the Southwest," TV Food Network's "Cooking Live," and "Cooking Live — Primetime" with Sara Moulton, as well as "In Food Today." She also was featured in articles in The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler.

After 10 years Oden closed the Corn Dance Cafe and hit the road to educate as many people as she could about cooking healthy, traditional foods. She said she is blessed to be part of the Desert Rain Cafe.

"It is really fun and exciting to see what we can do with all these different foods," she said. "It even brings back memories from when I was young."

The food also brings back childhood memories for Beverly Harris, a Tohono O'odham social worker. She said the smell of the corn reminds her of when it was harvest time and her family would roast the corn.

"I think the cafe is wonderful," Harris said. "We (Tohono O'odham people) needed a change."

White Tepary Beans and Mesquite Grilled Chicken Chile

Serves: 6-8.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1/2 cup onions, chopped

• 4 cloves garlic finely chopped

• 2 serrano chiles, seeded and finely chopped

• 2 teaspoons cumin

• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

• 1/2 teaspoon crushed chiltepín

• 6 cups chicken stock

• 4 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped into large chunks

• 8-10 cups cooked white tepary beans

• Salt to taste

Garnish:

• Diced tomatoes

• Chopped green onions

• Diced avocado

• Cilantro

Heat oil, add onions and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, chiles, cumin, oregano and chiltepín peppers and cook a few minutes longer. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Salt to taste. Reduce heat to a simmer, add cooked, chopped chicken and cooked beans and cook till warmed through, about 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings.

Top with chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro and avocado. Serve hot.

Adapted from Barbara Pool Fenzl for the Desert Rain Cafe

If you go

The Desert Rain Cafe, located in the Bashas' Plaza in Sells, is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

The cafe focuses on breakfast, lunch and takeout, but there are plans to include dinner in the future. The cafe also plans to start running daily specials and putting nutritional information on the menu.

The cafe serves meals such as grilled chicken glazed in prickly pear and chile sauce, mesquite smoothie, sautéed squash enchiladas baked with green salsa and cheese and fire-roasted ears of corn. Prices for drinks and meals range from $1.95 to $7. 95.