Stinging Nettles: Holding on to Indigenous North American Food Culture

Part of the Series

Ladydrawers

2015 0414aem fb Welcome to the second strip in our “Growing Season” series, the ongoing comics journalism series for Truthout in which The Ladydrawers investigate connections between food, gender, race and public health in comics form.

Following up on “Roots and Migrations,” the first strip in the new series, our second installment “Stinging Nettles” takes a peek at the food culture and traditions of North America before colonization – and what it takes to keep them alive today. Next time, we’ll look at an innovative food justice operation with international impact with everyone’s favorite Melissa Mendes; then Sarah Becan will return with a strip on who practices food policy. Yum!

Stinging Nettles

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Sarah Becan

Sarah Becan is a self-published comics artist, author, illustrator and designer based in Chicago, and creator of the Ignatz-nominated “I Think You’re Sauceome”, an autobiographical webcomic about our complicated relationships with food. Her first graphic novel, The Complete Ouija Interviews, earned a Xeric Award and a Stumptown Trophy for Outstanding Debut, and her second graphic novel, Shuteye, was funded with a successful Kickstarter campaign and released in early 2012.

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a Fulbright scholar, a UN Press Fellow, the Truthout columnist behind Ladydrawers: Gender and Comics in the US, and the author of several award-winning books.

Anne Elizabeth Moore

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a cultural critic and author of several award-winning, best-selling nonfiction books including Unmarketable (The New Press) and Cambodian Grrrl (Cantankerous Titles). She is a Fulbright scholar, a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow, and is the recipient of a 2016 Write A House Fellowship in Detroit. Her work has appeared in The Baffler, Al Jazeera, Salon, The Onion, Talking Points Memo, Wilson Quarterly, Tin House, and in international art exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial and a solo show at the MCA Chicago. She has appeared on CNN, NPR, Voice of America, and in The New York Times, among others. Her most recent book, from Curbside Splendor, is Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes.