Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, or even Twitch, food media is on everyone’s algorithm. Now, it’s easier than ever to learn about a new culture’s food right on your phone. But the food media landscape wasn’t always so readily engaging and accessible. This is why Alana Yazzie started TheFancyNavajo, a blog that pays homage to the modern and traditional tastings of Navajo and Southwestern foods.
Yazzie, a Diné (Navajo) food and lifestyle blogger, says starting TheFancyNavajo blog in 2014 separate from social media was her way to carve out more spaces for Navajo culture and life on the internet.
“[TheFancyNavajo] started from my audience, who kept kind of wanting to learn a little bit more about the things I was sharing because Instagram wasn’t like what it is now,” Yazzie says. “It was very limited in its features.”
Instagram circa 2014 was solely a picture-based platform, but this lack of mixed media is what pushed Yazzie to create her outlet. At first, she posted mainly fashion and lifestyle content. The turning point came when she recreated her foods from her childhood. She would add a modern flair to traditional Diné cuisine and Indigenous dishes and share the stories behind every crafted recipe. Her food content served a dual purpose of educating others and preserving the culinary gems behind Navajo culture where food is a marker of community and resourcefulness.
“In my culture, people don’t usually write down recipes,” Yazzie says. “I wanted modern or traditional Navajo cuisine to be as accessible as possible in a way that it wasn’t before. I think that’s another reason why people are interested.”
Starting out, Yazzie worked on TheFancyNavajo anonymously to keep it separate from her 9-to-5 job. But when her employer began laying off people, Yazzie decided to turn TheFancyNavajo into a full-time commitment. Her big leap of faith paid off when other businesses began working with her, exchanging content and broadening her audience outreach.
“I’m not someone who would just quit my career and be like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go pursue my own business on the side.’ But that was the initial push to believe in myself and have this time to try it out and see what happens,” she says.
Fast forward to today, Yazzie has over 500 subscribers on her blog and over 27,000 followers on her Instagram page. She shares cornerstones of Native cuisine, and staple ingredients like white corn for Táá’, Three Sisters Stew, or Alkaan, a cornmeal cake with raisins and ‘Magic bread.’ The recipe makes three types of bread — tortillas, biscuits, and fry bread — with minimal ingredients. For Yazzie, it’s a regular custom to make bread alongside her mom and shimásáni (grandma). But she is best known on her blog for her innovative use of blue corn and juniper ash with “fancy” takes like blue corn cupcakes, blue corn pumpkin waffles, and blue corn and strawberry shortcakes.
“It’s really cool how we use one ingredient in so many ways and preserve the same recipe from years and years ago,” she notes. “And a lot of times people don’t realize there’s so many different tribes, and we live all across the world. Even in North America, from the Northwest to the Southwest, where I’m from, the cuisines are drastically different.”
Yazzie emphasizes the importance of accessible Indigenous ingredients, echoing her desire to increase Native American representation be it through her own content or by uplifting Native-owned products and local businesses. She made her own brand of blue cornmeal mix inspired by her repertoire (which quickly sold out) and recently wrote a cookbook, The Modern Navajo Kitchen, currently available for pre-order.
“We do have Indigenous chefs doing amazing things in culinary spaces and working in Michelin-star restaurants, but am I really going to recreate your Michelin-star meal every day?” she expresses. “With TheFancyNavajo, I’m trying to figure out how we can make it so everyone wants to [cook Navajo cuisine] every day.”
In 2021, a research survey analyzing Gen Z’s social media behaviors showed that nearly four out of five participants enjoyed watching or engaging with food content on social media. For many content creators like Yazzie, culinary storytelling via video or photography became the ultimate formula to engage with more audiences. Now posting her content through different platforms, Yazzie says she found herself connecting with an entirely different generation of followers.
“It was during the pandemic that I made my YouTube channel because that was my only way of interacting with people — through cooking demonstrations and cultural demonstrations. Making that move [to YouTube and TikTok] opened me up to new communities, which was scary at first, but it reminded me of why I’m still here and why I do what I love most,” she says.
The future of TheFancyNavajo is something Yazzie says she’s proud of, considering all the strides and goals accomplished up to this point. She encourages any aspiring food content creator to remember that what you’re most passionate about is always worth it.
“If it’s something you’re truly passionate about, pursuing something like this shouldn’t be daunting,” she says. “It shouldn’t be something difficult for you to attain because as long as you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s your creative outlet and you have to own it.”