Beyond the Plate: One Dish One Spoon Returns with a Deeper Story to Tell

Photo: Haudenosaunee Chef Tawnya Brant of One Dish One Spoon © CNW Group/Big Soul Productions Inc.

By Raye Mocioiu

Around the world and across every culture, food is a vessel for connection. Award-winning chefs and home cooks alike echo this sentiment as they weave in traditions, culture, and personal storytelling through their meals. Haudenosaunee chef Tawnya Brant is no different.

Known for her deeply personal approach to food and her commitment to Indigenous food sovereignty, Brant’s story is as much about the evolution of a chef as it is about the meals she creates.

Chef Brant says her journey into the world of food began in childhood. More specifically, it started at home, in Six Nations of the Grand River, where food was a product of working with the land; grown, harvested, hunted, and shared.

Raised in a household without electricity or running water, Brant learned early what it meant to work with the land. Summers were spent tending to gardens; winters required resilience and resourcefulness. These experiences laid the foundation for a culinary philosophy grounded in respect for ingredients and an understanding of where food truly comes from.

By the time she was 12, Brant had already stepped into the restaurant world, working at a local café in Ohswé:ken. What started as a job quickly became an apprenticeship of sorts. Drawn to the kitchen, she spent as much time as possible learning from cooks, asking questions, observing techniques, and finding her place behind the line.
Her formal training at Fleming College in culinary management added structure, but like many chefs, her real education came through experience. A decade spent opening restaurants across southern Ontario, western New York, and Manitoulin Island honed her technical skills and adaptability, exposing her to the industry’s fast-paced demands. But when she became a mother, she decided that her career needed a shift.

Seeking a more grounded life for her children, she returned to Six Nations and founded Yawekon Foods, a catering business rooted in Haudenosaunee flavours and traditions. The name itself means “it tastes good” in Mohawk, a simple promise that weaves in her culture.

Here, Brant began to fully integrate her culinary training with her cultural knowledge. Ingredients are often sourced locally, many grown in family gardens or connected to the Mohawk Seedkeepers Garden she helps nurture. This is the beauty of her work: dishes carry elements of memory, tradition, and place. That’s also why her show, One Dish One Spoon, is so beloved.

One Dish One Spoon

One Dish One Spoon follows Chef Brant on her journey to strengthen food security and support local economies in her home community. Premiering May 4 on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), and on APTN+ on May 27, with the Kanien’kéha-language version to air in the fall on APTN Languages, Season 2 takes us beyond the kitchen and deeper into Brant’s culinary identity, the experiences that shaped it, and what it takes to sustain a food enterprise—particularly one that prioritizes local sourcing, cultural responsibility, and community impact.

The show doesn’t shy away from the challenges, particularly that centuries of colonization have disrupted traditional food systems. With the support of family, fellow seed keepers, farmers, agricultural experts, historians and a few colourful personalities, Tawnya demonstrates how community is key to reclaiming and sustaining Indigenous food sovereignty.