If you don’t know anything about Native American cuisine, read this

Freddie Bitsoie didn’t imagine a career in food when he was younger, although in retrospect it was always an underlying theme of his work, he tells The Independent. In fact, it wasn’t until an impromptu conversation with his anthropology professor at the University of Albuquerque that he ever really considered it.

He had been studying ancient food systems in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Archaeologists had discovered the remains of macaw feathers and cacao beans in the area, suggesting that ancient Puebloans, the largest group of people to live there 900 years ago, had tremendous road and trade systems between central America and what is now modern day Phoenix. “It was really fascinating to me that we tend to think about Native culture as people who generally stay in one area and just pick berries and eat them, instead of having a systematic way of wanting to have those things that they don’t have access to,” he explains.