Ben Jacobs is a chef and a tribal member of the Osage Nation. He’s also a leader in bringing Native American food to the forefront of the American culinary conversation. In 2008, he founded Tocabe, one of the only restaurants in Denver specializing in Native and Indigenous cuisine and one of only a handful in the United States.
Ben was also a recent guest on our podcast, Forktales, where he talked about the best way to prepare elk, Tocabe’s appearance on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives (and how Guy Fieri saved Ben’s restaurant), Ben’s Seed to Soul mission and why it’s so hard to define Native American food.
Here’s a look at four questions from that episode. Check out the full interview with Ben here.
WHAT IS AMERICAN INDIAN CUISINE? HOW DO YOU DEFINE THAT?
I love that question because whenever someone asks me what Native American cuisine is, I say “I don’t know.” That’s the whole point. I like to say that we’re this beautiful experience of the native culinary world. We’re all so different. There’s this idea of the Indian right? But we’re all so drastically different depending on region and tribal community.
TOCABE WAS FEATURED ON “DINERS, DRIVE-INS & DIVES” BACK IN 2011. WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WORK WITH GUY FIERI?
Guy was amazing. He was so much fun. He was engaging with our very young crew. He enjoyed being there. You could tell he was into it and it was fantastic.
WAS THAT APPEARANCE ON “DINERS, DRIVE-INS & DIVES” GOOD FOR BUSINESS?
The production team at (Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives) said “You know, this is like winning the lottery.” And we were like, “Alright, well we’ll see.” We were on the verge of failure and (Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives) saved us. After that, business skyrocketed for us. I will always be grateful to Guy Fieri and his entire team. To this day we have people that come in and say “I saw you guys on Triple D!”
YOU SOURCE YOUR FOOD AND INGREDIENTS FROM NATIVE SOURCES. TALK A LITTLE ABOUT THAT.
Many restaurants are local. We believe in that as well. But for us to be a native restaurant, we need to support the native food system and since it is so spread out, the goal of local becomes difficult. We have to travel for our ingredients, so we say “Native first, local second.”
