The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen
SynopsisPlot
Here is real food—our indigenous American fruits and vegetables, the wild and foraged ingredients, game and fish. Locally sourced, seasonal, “clean” ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare—no fry bread or Indian tacos here—and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef’s healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut–maple bites.
Story
About this book
Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef, wrote this cookbook with Beth Dooley to present a working model of indigenous North American cooking rooted in the Dakota and Minnesota territories. The book deliberately excludes ingredients that arrived with European colonization, including wheat flour, dairy, refined sugar, and domesticated beef and pork. Instead, Sherman builds recipes from foods native to the continent: game such as venison, bison, rabbit, and wild turkey; freshwater fish like river and lake trout; wild plants including purslane, sage, sumac, and timpsula (wild turnip); and fruits such as blueberries and plums.
The recipes range from cedar-braised bison and griddled wild rice cakes to amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, roasted corn sorbet, and a three sisters salad based on the traditional combination of corn, beans, and squash. Sherman also covers dried meats, smoked turkey soup, and deviled duck eggs. The approach favors seasonal, locally foraged, and whole-animal preparation methods.
Sherman founded The Sioux Chef as an organization centered on identifying and reclaiming pre-colonial foodways. The cookbook serves as both a practical kitchen guide and a record of ingredients and techniques that predate the foods now commonly associated with Native American cooking, such as fry bread.
