The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen

Mon, 11/23/2020 - 5:38pm by samanthar

The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen is more than a book of recipes; it’s an education, exploration, and exaltation of seasonal, indigenous American food.  Author and chef Sean Sherman has worked to decolonize the Indigenous diet by tracing the history of foods and their introduction to the first people. There is no white flour, sugar, or dairy in this cookbook - only authentic Indigenous ingredients that have evidence of being utilized in America before European influence. While there were many unfamiliar ingredients to me - like juniper and sunchokes- there was plenty of the familiar, too, like sweet corn and squash. Chef Sherman encourages homecooks to go out to your local farmer’s market and find ingredients that are in season and close to your kitchen, and incorporate or substitute them into the recipes. The focus stays on the fundamentals of food, with the recipes organized into chapters based on where ingredients are gathered, like Fields and Gardens, and Prairies and Lakes. Even if you don’t plan on making any of the recipes featured, the beautiful photos and Sherman’s informative writing is well worth checking out. I especially enjoyed reading through and seeing the beautiful photography, the special attention paid to every ingredient, and the anecdotes and informative stories sprinkled throughout.