In Pascua Yaqui spiritual beliefs the Sea Ania is the Flower World, one of five spiritual realms, and is considered both “the living beautiful part of our present world” and “the final resting place in heaven for the Yaqui people.” These teachings come from Maria L. Molina (Pascua Yaqui) who explicated the Yaqui worldview in a 2010 handout available to visitors at the tribe’s library, where her daughter Amalia Amacio Molina Reyes serves as supervisor. Flowers as expressions of beauty and holiness permeate Yaqui artwork and cultural and religious symbols; and the Yaquis, especially Maria and Amalia, are known for their hand-crafted crepe-paper flowers that colorfully festoon the tribe’s churches on Easter.

So when a slice of lotus root looking like one of Matisse’s cutouts adorned the first plate of a once-in-a lifetime, special off-the-menu culinary adventure at Ume, the Asian restaurant/sushi bar in the tribe’s elegant Tucson, Arizona resort Casino del Sol, this thought bloomed: Chef Xander Cameron, though not Yaqui himself, is a chef who knows both where he is and why he’s there—to feed people beautifully and make culinary art that inspires.

“I thought about the flow of the flavors, how I would like to eat it,” Cameron said about his ordering of the dishes presented over the five hours in which he cooked, I ate, and we talked about his two simultaneous translations: the transformation of traditional Southeast Asian and Japanese dishes into meatless versions, and the expression of Yaqui values of creativity and beauty in non-Native culinary art.

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