Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef, dispels outdated notions of Native American fare; no fry bread, dairy products, or sugar here. The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen features healthful plates that embrace venison, duck, blueberries, sage, amaranth, and abundant wildflowers. This volume is a delectable introduction to the modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories.
The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen
Praise for The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen
“Mr. Sherman is joining a vital group that stretches across North America and Canada, using food culture to celebrate and empower native people.”
— Tejal Rao, The New York Times
“There are cookbooks from which one simply cooks the recipes, and cookbooks from which one learns how and why to cook. Chef Sherman’s book is in the latter. It is a cookbook meant to be studied, one where the recipes are not its most important feature, but rather a part of an overall call to reclaim the history and culture of indigenous peoples. Chef Sherman observes that controlling food is a means of controlling power. With this cookbook, he is taking that power and giving it back to its rightful owners.”
— Foreword Reviews
About the Authors
Chef Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota, born in Pine Ridge, SD, has been cooking across the US and Mexico over the past 30 years, and has become renowned nationally and internationally in the culinary movement of indigenous foods. His main focus has been on the revitalization and evolution of indigenous foods systems throughout North America. Chef Sean has studied on his own extensively to determine the foundations of these food systems to gain a full understanding of bringing back a sense of Native American cuisine to today’s world. In 2014, he opened the business titled, The Sioux Chef as a caterer and food educator in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. He and his business partner Dana Thompson also designed and opened the Tatanka Truck, which featured pre-contact foods of the Dakota and Minnesota territories.
In October 2017, Sean was able to perform the first decolonized dinner at the James Beard House in Manhattan along with his team. His first book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen was awarded the James Beard medal for Best American Cookbook for 2018 and was chosen one of the top ten cookbooks of 2017 by the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle as well as the Smithsonian Magazine. This year, Chef Sean was selected as a Bush Fellow. The Sioux Chef team of twelve people continues with their mission to help educate and make indigenous foods more accessible to as many communities as possible through their recently founded non-profit entitled NATIFS.
Beth Dooley is the author of many award-winning cookbooks, including Savory Sweet: Simple Preserves from a Northern Kitchen, Minnesota’s Bounty: The Farmers Market Cookbook, and The Birchwood Cafe Cookbook, all published by the University of Minnesota Press. She has also written a memoir, In Winter’s Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland.
Header photo by Field Museum
