horše ta-mak 'amma
This is how we say "es buena comida," or the food is good, in the Chochenyo language – the indigenous language of the East Bay.
Recorded in 1921. Information shared with Chochenyo-speaker and hero Angela de los Colos at Sunol in 1921 to John Harrington, linguist from the Smithsonian; the old-timers worked with purpose preserving Chochenyo for future generations.
hinṭo?
what is mak-'amham?
mak-'amham (mahk-am-haam) means our food in the Chochenyo Ohlone language. Chochenyo is the Native language to the Eastern shores of San Francisco Bay, the area collectively known as "the East Bay."
We are an Ohlone cultural institution empowering our community with tradition—and we teach the public, through taste, of our unbroken roots.
We operate in our indigenous homeland; we work to restore and strengthen traditional Ohlone foods for the wellness of our people, and we run Cafe Ohlone in xučyun—Berkeley. We work to keep our cuisine and culture strong as an act of love and celebration for our living culture, and to have greater visibility for the Ohlone community that we are a part of.
Our food is representative of a continuum of Ohlone culinary traditions; dishes loved by our family in all periods of our history — from the days prior to colonization to certain, specific foods embraced by our family on our own terms in later periods. Every dish we share at Cafe Ohlone has a reason for its place and represents our living culture.
Ohlone homelands. mak-'amham founder Vincent Medina is Chochenyo Ohlone, from the East Bay. Louis Trevino, mak-'amham co-founder is Rumsen Ohlone from near Monterey Bay.
All our foods stay true to the values of our Ohlone culture and true to the standards of Ohlone cuisine. We gather many of our ingredients in the East Bay in a traditional way, and those which we cannot gather we find sustainable ways to bring to the table.
Our food represents true California cuisine, as these are the very first flavors of California before other foods and cuisines were brought here. We are proud to honor the beautiful land where we come from and the dignified, sophisticated people that we descend from.
'ammamak! Let's eat!