Bringing back ancestral food from the Ohlone in the Bay Area

Soft-boiled quail eggs at Cafe Ohlone.

Maarah salad (quail eggs, fiddleheads, Indian onion, watercress pesto, yellowfoot mushrooms, smoked venison skewers, blackberry coulis) served at Cafe Ohlone.

Dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

Dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

Brodiaea potatoes and their flower in a warsin basket as Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino gather ingredients.

Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino as they gather ingredients in the Berkeley Hills for a dinner.

A traditional Ohlone game with black walnut dice and willow counting sticks is displayed at the dinner.

Vincent Medina, Left, playing a handgame with Grace Ruano, both members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. While Ras K’Dee and Louis Trevino watch on during a dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

A skillet with valley oak acorn flour bread is passed around at Cafe Ohlone. This is a recipe Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino drew from archival notes recorded by their community in the 1920s and ’30s.

Table decor at Cafe Ohlone.

A woman samples a beverage at Cafe Ohlone.

A guest peels a soft-boiled quail egg during dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

Pattih dessert (hazelnut milk chia porridge with bay laurel and blackberry coulis, valley oak acorn flour brownies with crystallized salt, popped amaranth, edible flowers) served at Cafe Ohlone.

Dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

Vincent Medina gives a presentation before a dinner at Cafe Ohlone.

Close up of a leaf of “Indian lettuce” as Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino gather ingredients in the East Bay area the Ohlone have long called Halkin, with parts now in Southern Oakland, Castro Valley and Hayward.

Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino gather ingredients in the Berkeley Hills for a dinner at Cafe Ohlone.