Meet Indigenous Chef Crystal Wahpepah
Crystal Wahpepah is a California-based Indigenous chef, a restaurateur, a Food Network competitor and an author.
Susan Magnano
From watching her grandmother cook her tribe’s traditional foods and opening a restaurant to penning her own cookbook, Crystal Wahpepah has worked to share her knowledge about native foods, reclaiming food sovereignty and her trailblazing achievements as an Indigenous chef.
Crystal is from the Kickapoo tribe in Oklahoma — one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States. Her last name, Wahpepah [WAH-pea-paw], means “leader of the eagles” in Kickapoo language.
The Kickapoo are a woodland tribe that was victimized by forced relocation in the 19th century and the poverty and hardship that followed. In 1936, the Oklahoma tribe of Kickapoo was formally organized by the Indian Welfare Act. The tribe is headquartered in McCloud, Oklahoma, but Crystal grew up in Oakland, California, on Ohlone land in what she described as a “multi-tribal, tight-knit, urban Native community.”
“My style of cooking is authentic Native American foods — corn, squash, buffalo, very simple food,” Crystal explained on Chopped Season 28, Episode 8. That episode, "Tortellini Trials," marked the first appearance of a Native American chef on the show.
“It’s very important for me to keep the culture alive through the food,” she said. And part of keeping the culture alive through food is via the concept of food sovereignty.
What Is Food Sovereignty?
Food sovereignty is the idea that groups of people have the right to determine where and how their food is produced. For native communities, there’s been a historic lack of food sovereignty due to colonization, forced relocation and erasure of Indigenous culture.
California Polytechnic University, Humboldt, is tackling food sovereignty head-on at the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute, which is also where Crystal is serving as the lab’s chef-in-residence for the 2025-2026 season.
Wahpepah’s Kitchen
Crystal is the owner and operator of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, where she prepares and serves Indigenous dishes made from ingredients obtained from Indigenous farmers. Berries, fish, bison, greens, deer, blue corn and mushrooms are all staples of the menu.
Courtesy of Wahpepah’s Kitchen
“I’m not just serving these foods, I'm actually honoring these foods and honoring the people that I feed and honoring my ancestors,” she explained.
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A Feather and a Fork
Crystal's cookbook, A Feather and a Fork, features 125 intratribal recipes, instructions for native cooking and the history of the tribes she grew up with in Oakland. Recipes include sweet blue cornbread with huckleberry compote, Indigenous popcorn balls with edible flowers and bison roast with chokeberry rub.
From an acclaimed Indigenous chef comes an extraordinary cookbook that weaves powerful storytelling with 125 intertribal recipes to heal our bodies and restore our foodways — featuring a foreword by bestselling novelist and fellow Oaklandian Tommy Orange.
See Crystal on Food Network
Crystal was the first Indigenous chef to compete on Chopped in Season 28, Episode 5, "Tortellini Trials." Though she was eliminated in the first round, her resolve never wavered.
“This is not gonna stop me by any means," she said.
Nick Agro
Crystal's next stop was Alex vs. America Season 4's "Alex vs. Ultimate Fruits." While chef Alex Guarnaschelli opined that many chefs don't think to pair fruits with meat, Crystal dove in and created fruit cake venison taquitos and stone fruit pico de gallo that wowed the judges.
Most recently, Crystal competed on Beat Bobby Flay Season 33, Episode 8, "Kitchen Crime Scene." Bobby's challenge ingredient in Round 1 was escarole, a bitter, leafy vegetable that can be difficult to cook with.
Stephen Davis Phillips
