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This story and recipe is one of the stories I use in a series of monologues on the role that food played in keeping us a strong tribal family unit. Traditional foods and for everyday substance, the preparation and reverence for food are some of my fondest memories of growing up as a man.

In the Puyoukichum (Luiseno) culture there is mix of Spanish words that have found there way into our language, as we had no word for certain things that were new to us brought by the invasion of the Spanish.  To name a few news words to our culture there was not a word for horse, there was not word for motor/car and not word for a hangover.

The Spanish word for a quick stew made out of just about anything is “guesado” or as it was turned out by us, “guesso”.  My grandfather was a great fan and maker of “guessos”, partularly as a late afternoon or for a nighttime snack.  I remember with great clarity of having to leave the area as Grandpa cooked with hot chilies and it got pretty intense when he was making some kind of concoction.

Many years ago, while in my 20’s, I worked at an aviation company in Calgary as a data entry clerk. Although my interest in computing was directly related to a MIDI sequencer my boyfriend-at-the-time had turned me onto for our ATARI1020, I had just learned MS-DOS and decided to put this new language to good use. Plus, I needed a job since I was only gigging occasionally, doing performance art, performance poetry (now known as ‘spoken word’) and singing in a couple local bands.

Probably because of all the late night beers during the gigs and bar food afterwards, my health was suffering and I knew I needed a complete overhaul of my diet. I had taken an herbology course because my previous job at a whole food / health food store stocking the herb room so I knew enough about good nutrition vs bad nutrition. While in that job I’d purchased a few useful items, a champion juicer and some health food cookbooks, one that had a really good recipe for vegetarian chili called ‘Chili con elote’. Anyway, I started eating better and for the 6 months I worked at the aviation company dropped about 20 lbs. Unfortunately, the job wasn’t as successful as my health regimen.

I tried bonding with my fellow workmates, but I found them to be a largely racist and sexist group of red-necks. They scoffed at everything I wore, everything I ate, every book I read and everything I said. I became comfortable eating alone and really preferred the daily repetition of the data entry work unfettered by gossip, slander and hateful racist diatribes.

One day a new temp was hired for one of the front offices, another native gal named Petra Brass. I immediately befriended her and she and I would spend our lunches and coffee breaks away from everyone else, talking about things that would temporarily take us far away from our place of employment. Sadly, she only lasted a month and I was again alone. With no other job prospects in sight, I was determined to find some point of interest to bond with my fellow employees. So, as Stampede Days were nearing and the company was planning its festivities, I decided I would enter the chili bake-off. I was eyeing the 2^nd place prize of $50 cash.

I’d been perfecting the chili recipe from the health food cookbook, but had made a few changes. I didn’t like the corn it called for and instead preferred zuccini and eggplant. I also changed the types of beans to three (black, navy and kidney) and ground some of the black beans to make a thick nutty gravy plus opted for much more cumin (grinding it from whole seeds to a tasty pulp with my ceramic mortar and pestle – another health food store purchase). I also added texturized vegetable protein to make it appear to contain ground meat.

The day of the chili bake-off came and we were all lined up re-heating our pots of chili on little hotplates. The variety of dishes were staggering. There were dishes like: white chocolate chili, steak chili, killer hot chili, pork chili, chili n ribs chili – and many more I can’t recall. For the contest, I renamed my dish Veggie and Bean Chili Supreme – more because it had a nice rhythm and also because I didn’t know what the ‘elote’ was from the original.

The judges had been brought in from outside the company – one was even a DJ at a local country music radio station. I thought this was a good move, since there was a lot of ‘alpha-type’ workmates lined up wanting to win, who, if being judged internally, they’d have won because no-one would have been able to endure their on-the-job scorn for too long. One by one they moved from cooking station to station, taking small helpings and savouring each mouthful. For a few, they had friendly banter with the contestant – a sure sign that might be a winner. Some of the contestants who chummed around at work would make public displays of how funny they were, laughing at each other’s well worn racist and sexist jokes and everyone within earshot would belly laugh yet again. I mostly held my own, enjoying the aroma of cumin and the fact that it was sunny and I was outside and that that at least I had something in common with everyone there.

Happily, when they announced the finalists, I was one of them! I could feel that $50 looming ever closer as the judges came by for a 2^nd tasting. At this point, all my co-workers felt compelled to try my chili too. They swore it must have ground beef in it, but I assured them otherwise.

When they announced the winner, an eerie silence put a hole in the joviality. I had won first place and I was as shocked as everyone else there. No-one cheered, least of all me. See, the first place prize was worth $100, but was 2 tickets to the grandstand event at the Calgary Stampede. And of course my co-workers all wanted to go, to be able to brag to friends about the win, to get drunk in the VIP bar at the grounds. Me, I smiled politely and graciously accepted and even thought about asking the 2^nd place winner if they wanted to swap with me, but by this point once again I was being shunned, so I left and took the bus home, chili pot in a large cloth bag with handles and tickets in the tacky little black fringed leather pouch with blue ribbon attached.

I thought about trying to sell the tickets but didn’t want to hang outside of the grounds and compete with the rest of the scalpers, so I walked down my street and serendipitously found a couple setting up a camper trailer. The vehicle had out of province licence plates, so I said hi, asked if they were going to the stampede and offered the tickets, saying I couldn’t go or find any family interested in the tickets. They happily accepted and I went back home to jar up the rest of the chili and play with my MIDI sequencer and electric piano. Oh yeah, I left the job about a month later and got a job as programming coordinator for the artist-run-centre TRUCK.

What does all this have to do with this recipe or with NDNSPAM? Well, like the chili recipe, this one has been appropriated - from the internet, though some of the ingredients have been changed and not necessarily for a healthy lifestyle. The idea for NDNSPAM fried dumplings actually comes from Walter Quon (from BC Arts Council), who also gets credit for putting into my head that there are family favorite recipes made with Spam (though if you read Lisa Myer's text about this project in the 'about' section, you'll read that wasn't necessarily the case in my home growing up).

Ps – ‘con elote’ means ‘with sweetcorn’ – good thing I changed the name eh!