Newsmaker: Sean Sherman

Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe and founder of the restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, was not widely known in 2017, when he released his first cookbook, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, with Beth Dooley. But since then, he has become perhaps the most recognizable Indigenous chef in the country, racking up James Beard Foundation and Julia Child awards for his food and advocacy, being named to Time magazine’s 2023 Time100 list of most influential people, and even appearing on the PBS program Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. earlier this year.

His new cookbook, Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America (November, Clarkson Potter), written with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly, takes a region-by-region approach to Native ingredients, history, and cooking. Sherman spoke with American Libraries about this extensive collection, his early influences, and his love for libraries. Sample a recipe from Sherman’s new cookbook.

Turtle Island highlights the variance and range of Indigenous foodways across North America. How did you get started with this ambitious project?

I’d been thinking about next-step cookbooks for a while and doing something that could showcase the immense diversity of Indigenous cultures across North America and take away these colonial borders and just look at the land space in general. We’re not trying to write a museum piece. We’re not trying to go backwards and show how people were cooking in 1491. We’re looking at a modern viewpoint of where we are today.

How do we take this knowledge of plants, of agriculture, of proteins and put that into something that can tell a story? It’s such a big, ambitious project, yes, but it also barely scratches the surface. We had to trim way back. I think we turned in over 220,000 words for just the draft.

This book presents a lot of decolonized history and really asserts that Indigenous history is American history. What are you hoping readers take away from these passages?

We’re seeing a lot of aggression because of the political theater that’s happening in our country. There’s just a lot of demonization of not only DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] but people of color in history. They’re trying to whitewash an already very whitewashed history. So it’s really important to be very blunt and straightforward with historical facts. It’s not critical race theory—it’s literally just historical facts.

I hope that people can have this opportunity to be lured in by this beautiful food and actually learn something and maybe, hopefully, develop some empathy where there might not have been. I’m also hoping that it opens people’s eyes to their regions, because the US food system has been so homogenized. Typically, you stop at any restaurant along an interstate, and it’s the same menu everywhere you go. We could have a much deeper understanding of region if we included indigeneity in the whole storyline.

Both of your cookbooks describe your affinity for reading. Were there any cookbooks or writings that made a formative impression on you or affected how you approach food?

[Italian cooking writer] Marcella Hazan was one of my main influences. At my first real sous chef position, we were doing a lot of country Italian–style foods. I read a lot of [Auguste] Escoffier and all those things too, but those didn’t appeal to me as much because you needed a brigade to pull those off—massive kitchen scenarios and huge equipment to create the perfect demi [glace]. A lot of that was built for kings and queens, whereas a lot of the country-style cooking was what people were eating out there in different regions. Italy showcases that so beautifully, so I really connected with that regional and seasonal and simplistic aspect.

What role have libraries played in your life?

I grew up not having access to a library on the reservation. When we moved to the small town of Spearfish [in South Dakota], and my mom was going back to college, I would spend my time with her at the library. That was an amazing world of so much knowledge. Understanding the power of the internet for the first time, right? I felt like I had access to everything.

What’s your favorite meal to prepare for loved ones?

I see food a lot like music. What’s the mood, what makes sense, and who’s it for? For me, I love cooking seasonally. I love going to the co-op and seeing what’s there. [It’s July right now, and] we’re just barely crawling into tomato season, greens are growing all over, beans and chili peppers are starting to pop up. I have a lot of wild food around the yard—there’s bergamot and hyssop and sochan. I just love cooking fresh, so I don’t know if I have a go-to recipe. It’s like music: What’s the mood at the moment, and what’s around us?

Sample a recipe from Sherman’s new cookbook.