Modern Farmer | Earth Mover: Sean Sherman

“It’s not like I could go to the library and check out Joy of Native American Cooking,” quips Sean Sherman, author of the recently released The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen cookbook.

The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (Sean Sherman)In 2014, the enterprising chef launched Sioux Chef (sioux-chef.com), a mini culinary empire founded on the idea of digging up and popularizing pre-contact foods. Now, he is working on a full-fledged Native American restaurant slated for 2019 in Minneapolis and the North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS), a non-profit incubator raising up food heroes in tribal communities.

He’s at the forefront of the indigenous food movement: Sherman co-launched the Sioux Chef with his partner Dana Thompson as a catering company. Soon after, came the food trucks, a Kickstarter restaurant project (the most-funded restaurant on the platform), educational workshops, speaking gigs, and the book. Last year, the duo banded with other chefs, ethnobotanists, food preservationists, and artists, across the nation to fuel NAFTIS, which aims to increase access to and knowledge of pre-contact foods. “No matter where you are in North America, there’s indigenous history, culture, and food there,” he says. “We just want people to realize that.”

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Published in: Modern Farmer
By: Hannah Saulters