Native tastes on a resort’s menu

Growing up in a Native American community in Oregon, Jack Strong ate a lot of canned meat and processed cheese, handouts from the Department of Agriculture.

Strong wasn’t exposed to most traditional Native American foods until two years ago, when he began working as the chef de cuisine at Kai, the AAA five-diamond restaurant at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort in Chandler, Ariz.

Now he cooks with as many native ingredients as possible, including plenty of beans, corn and cactus. He’s particularly proud of a salad named Lettuce Hand Picked by Local Farmers & Children of Gila River Crossing School.

“We purchase whatever we can from their gardens throughout the year,” Strong says.

“It’s like a new cuisine, but it’s the oldest cuisine out there,” Strong says of the menu at Kai. “These ingredients have been out there for hundreds of years.”

-- Jay Jones