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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 'Sioux Chef' Is Putting Pre-Colonization Food Back On The Menu
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/10/07/354053768/the-sioux-chef-is-putting-pre-colonization-food-back-on-the-menuSherman, who calls himself the Sioux Chef, grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It's where he first started to learn about the traditional foods of the Plains, whether it was hunting animals like pronghorn antelope and grouse, or picking chokecherries for wojapi, a berry soup....
In the meantime, Sherman worked his way up in the restaurant world, eventually becoming an executive chef at Minneapolis' La Bodega in 2000. Around the same time, he had the idea to write a Lakota cookbook. Although there were some Native American cookbooks already on the market, he says he found that most of them focused on the Southwest or made too many generalizations about food across regions and tribes.
When he tried to learn more about the wild game and especially the plants native to the Great Plains, he came up short. He says many Americans don't have a sense of the Lakota diet beyond bison or frybread. (Frybread is actually a fairly recent addition and has a complicated history.)
"Sioux Chef" FTW!
aikoaiko
(34,172 posts)[IMG][/IMG]
I'm going to get this book.
FSogol
(45,488 posts)I highly recommend reading everything by Sherman Alexie.
aikoaiko
(34,172 posts)I really liked Smoke Signals
FSogol
(45,488 posts)It is available online in the 4/21/2003 issue of The New Yorker. Enjoy
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/what-you-pawn-i-will-redeem
Lars39
(26,109 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)This is a very interesting trip into culinary anthropology. May have to try his food when disposable income is on my menu once again.
Sanity Claws
(21,849 posts)I would love to try traditional Native American diet.
About the only thing I know about the diet is its use of the 3 sisters, corn, squash and beans, and Pacific NW Indians' reliance on smoked salmon.
I'd love to know how they traditionally prepared shellfish and game.
Igel
(35,320 posts)There was also a lot of variation. Live in Massachusetts, you hardly eat bison. Shellfish, some fowl, and probably quite a bit of mast (which could be used to make flour, even).
Pawpaws were spread from their home in or near Arkansas up to near Quebec. Quite a range.
Ancestors of the Chumash so overfarmed coastal waters at once point they drove some shellfish species to extinction.
I'd be curious as to what seasonings he uses.
surrealAmerican
(11,362 posts)I hope his restaurant succeeds.
... and yes, what an irresistible pun.