Lois Ellen Frank facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lois Ellen Frank
Frank in 2019
Born	1960/1961 (age 64–65) New York City, US
Nationality	American
Occupation	Food historian, author, educator
Notable work	Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations
Awards	2003 James Beard Foundation Award

Lois Ellen Frank is an American food expert. She studies the history of food, writes cookbooks, and teaches about different cultures through food. She won a special award called the James Beard Foundation Award in 2003 for her cookbook, Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations. This was the first time a cookbook about Native American cuisine won such a big award.

Early Life and Family Roots

Lois Ellen Frank was born in New York City. Her mother was from the Kiowa nation, which is a Native American tribe. Her father's family were Sephardic Jewish people. This means they were Jewish people who originally came from Spain and Portugal. Her grandmother's family left Spain during a difficult time called the Spanish Inquisition. They moved to what is now Turkey, then to Palestine (region), and finally to New York City through Ellis Island in 1915.

Education and Learning

Lois Ellen Frank first went to culinary school to learn how to cook. After that, she studied photography at the Brooks Institute and graduated in 1985.

Later, she went back to school to learn more about cultures. She earned a master's degree in cultural anthropology in 1999. For her master's project, she studied how different Native American tribes across North and South America used corn. She then got her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of New Mexico. Her big research paper was about how Native American food is talked about and made in kitchens today.

Career and Discovering Native Foods

When Lois was in college, she worked as a cook at a restaurant. After finishing her photography degree, she worked in advertising. She took pictures for big companies like Evian water and Taco Bell.

A wise person she knew, Ernst Haas, made her think about her work. He asked if her work was truly meaningful. Lois realized she was making unhealthy food look good, and encouraging others to eat it. This made her want to explore her own heritage.

In the 1980s, she started asking about Native American food. People often told her that "there was no such thing." But Lois knew this wasn't true. She said, "Of course they had a cuisine, and it was intricate, diverse and delicious." Around this time, she met Juanita Tiger Kavena, who wrote one of the first cookbooks by a Native American cook.

In 1991, Lois tried to get a book published about Native American food. Publishers in New York told her that Native people didn't have a cuisine. They also said she wasn't qualified to write such a book. So, she went back to school to earn her master's and PhD. She remembers that at the time, schools mostly taught that American food came from immigrant groups. The cooking traditions of Native kitchens were often ignored.

Lois talked to many Native American tribes, like the Hopi, Ute, and Pueblo people. She collected their recipes. In 2002, her cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations was published. She worked with Walter Whitewater, who is Diné (Navajo). In 2003, this book won the James Beard Foundation Award. It was the first time a Native American cookbook or a book by a Native American author received this honor. CNN called it "the first Native American cookbook to turn the heads of James Beard Foundation Award judges."

In 2017, Lois was featured in a TV show called Native American Food Movements. This show was about traditional Native American diets.

Lois also works as a food diplomat for the United States Department of State. She travels with Walter Whitewater to other countries like Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Russia. There, they teach people about Native American food traditions.

Teaching and Consulting

Lois Ellen Frank is a professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She teaches classes about traditional arts, plants, and Native American food ideas. She also teaches cooking classes at the Santa Fe School of Cooking.

She works with groups like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to help with issues like diabetes in Native American communities. She is also a certified coach for the National Diabetes Prevention Program. She advises the Cultural Conservancy on Native American food traditions.

Lois and her business partner, Walter Whitewater, also started a company called Red Mesa Cuisine. This company offers catering and teaches people about traditional Native American food.

Her Food Philosophy

Frank in her Santa Fe, New Mexico, garden

Lois Ellen Frank explains that Native American cooking has gone through four main periods:

• Pre-Contact: This was before 1492, when Europeans arrived. Native Americans ate foods they grew, gathered, or hunted in their local areas.
• First Contact: This period began when Europeans arrived. New foods, like animals brought from Europe, were added to Native American diets.
• Government Issue: During this time, many Native Americans were moved from their lands. They were given government foods like flour, sugar, and lard to survive. This led to foods like frybread. Lois says frybread is "a very complicated food." It represents survival, because without it, many ancestors might have starved. For some, it's a comfort food. For others, it reminds them of a difficult time in history.
• New Native American: This is the current period. Native American chefs are going back to using the traditional ingredients and recipes from the Pre-Contact time.

Lois calls potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, chili, cacao, and vanilla the "magic eight" ingredients. These foods were only found in the Americas before 1492. They were then taken to the "Old World" (Europe, Asia, Africa) through the Columbian exchange. This completely changed the food in those places.

She explains that if these foods were not native to the Americas, then:

• Italians wouldn't have tomatoes.
• The Irish wouldn't have potatoes.
• Half of the British national dish, Fish and Chips, wouldn't exist.
• Russians wouldn't have potatoes or vodka made from potatoes.
• There would be no chili peppers in Asian or East Indian food, including curries.
• The French wouldn't have desserts using vanilla or chocolate.

So, the Old World was very different before these foods arrived!

Unlike some other Native American chefs, Lois believes it's okay for non-Native people to cook Native American cuisine. She thinks it's good if Native American producers, like those who harvest wild rice, benefit from it.

Her recipes often focus on vegetables. She likes to create menus using foods mostly from the Pre-Contact and First Contact periods. She believes foods from the Government Issue period caused health problems, like high rates of diabetes. Because of this, she prefers not to use them often.

Personal Life

Lois Ellen Frank lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.