This week, our Bachelor of Hospitality Management (DHM) students welcomed Chef Sarah Meconse Mierau, owner of Tradish, an Indigenous café, food truck, and plant-medicine jam company based in Fort Langley, for a guest lecture that turned into one of the most candid, memorable sessions we’ve hosted. The morning began with a short workshop on Indigenous food systems from instructor Julia Gromykhalova, setting the stage for Chef Sarah’s talk.
A Chef’s Path, Shaped by Loss and Healing
Chef Sarah’s path to the kitchen started with trying to save her father’s life. When he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, she researched dandelion root and other plant medicines to help him, and eventually cooked him potato pancakes from his own childhood, the moment, she told students, when she realized food could bring someone back to an exact memory. It was her father’s dying wish that she go to culinary school; after he passed, she enrolled at the Art Institute of Vancouver to honor him, going on to found Tradish: a plant-medicine jam company, an Indigenous food truck, and The Ancestor Café inside the Fort Langley Historic Site.
Chef Sarah spoke candidly about her family history, including that her mother was taken from her community as part of the Sixties Scoop and never made it home, and about rebuilding a connection to Sayisi Dene and Algonquin traditions she was never taught growing up. Her jams, sweetened with maple syrup and thickened with chia instead of refined sugar and pectin, are each named after an ancestor: Tracy’s Blueberry Lavender, Elizabeth’s Blackberry Sage, Harold’s Chamomile Pear, Uncle Sean’s Raspberry Dandelion. She described the protocols behind her business (tobacco offered back to the land when harvesting, a rule never to pick from a plant until she’s found a third one growing nearby) as ways of honoring what she called “energy transfer,” the belief that whatever you’re feeling when you touch food goes into it.
She also spoke about the harm caused by broken food systems, from residential schools that made hunting and foraging illegal, to her current work getting Indigenous food onto menus in retirement homes and hospitals so elders can request the meals they grew up on. Students asked about everything from how she prices her medicine teas to how she introduces non-Indigenous staff to the culture behind the business. Her answer to both: generosity. “If we keep this to ourselves, the world’s never gonna change,” she told the class.
Setting the Stage: Indigenous Food Systems with Julia
Before Chef Sarah arrived, Julia led students through the concept of food sovereignty, the idea, long practiced by Indigenous peoples, of taking only what you need and recognizing the people and effort behind what you eat, in contrast to the Western model of food security. She used the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) and the story of Pacific salmon as a keystone species to show how Indigenous food systems work with the land, then led a hands-on plant walk and tastings of Labrador tea, stinging nettle tea, rose hip, cranberry, blueberry, and huckleberry, priming students with the context they needed to get the most out of Chef Sarah’s talk.
A Morning of Real Conversation
What stood out most was how much of Chef Sarah’s session was genuine back-and-forth. Students and staff shared their own cultural parallels, from offerings to ancestors to herbal remedies passed down through families to festival foods, and she tied each one back to a shared thread: every culture is Indigenous to somewhere. The session closed with a certificate of appreciation for Chef Sarah and an open invitation for students to visit The Ancestor Café or tour Tradish’s food truck kitchen firsthand.
Western Community College’s Bachelor of Hospitality Management program is committed to giving students a genuine understanding of the cultures and food systems that shape the industry they’re entering. Learn more about Chef Sarah and Tradish at tradishcanada.ca.
