At this Minnesota food lab, Native culture is on the menu

Streams of pearl vapor swirl upward from a rectangular vat in an open kitchen at the Indigenous Food Lab, where Ismael Popoca Aguilar is stirring a mixture of limestone, water, and corn with a thick wooden spoon. The nixtamal preparation has to be just right in order to make hominy – and the perfect tortilla.

“You see? This water is more cloudy. It increases the pH, and the skin of the corn dissolves,” says Mr. Popoca Aguilar, who is Mexican Mestizo and culinary program manager at the Indigenous Food Lab, which opened in June in Minneapolis. “It’s easier to make the dough that way.” 

Corn is a staple item on the menu here, used not just for tortillas but also as part of grain bowls rich with squash, beans, wild greens, and a choice of bison,