'This was written for the future': Sean Sherman's new book shows diversity in Indigenous cooking

NINA MOINI: You likely know Chef Sean Sherman's name. His restaurant, Owamni, is a staple in the Minneapolis restaurant scene. Well, his commitment to spreading Indigenous foods and knowledge of Indigenous cooking has officially leveled up again.

Not only is Sherman's restaurant expanding to a larger location at the Guthrie Theater, he's out with a new cookbook highlighting Indigenous recipes across North America, or, as some Indigenous people call it, Turtle Island. That's the title of his new book. And he's here now to talk about it. Sean, thanks so much for joining me.

SEAN SHERMAN: Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: Again, this title, Turtle Island-- Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America, it has more than 150 recipes. Wow. How did you go about collecting all these recipes? Are these just kind of throughout your career? Or were you able to gather a lot of new ones?

SEAN SHERMAN: Well, yeah, I mean, basically, we just kind of look at North America as a whole. I've spent a lot of time throughout most of the states across the US, parts of Canada, and up in Alaska, of course. And I've lived in Mexico in my past and have spent a lot of time down there. So I just wanted to showcase this massive diversity everywhere.

And I wasn't trying to showcase only traditional foods, because there are some traditional recipes dotted throughout the book. But a lot of this was really kind of written for the future, of just the opportunity that we have to really embrace the indigeneity and the knowledge of Indigenous peoples everywhere, with their knowledge of plants and the different proteins and some of their cooking techniques, and really just trying to envision they way we do it by cutting out colonial ingredients of things that were introduced by European immigrants a long time ago.

So cutting away things like dairy, wheat flour, cane sugar, beef, pork, chicken, and just focused on very regionally aspect foods of just what's around us with the wild foods, the animals, the agriculture, and just building a whole bunch of cool recipes off of that challenge.

NINA MOINI: And you have so many ways, too, that you deliver your message and your food, obviously, within your restaurant, TV appearances, trainings that you do with people. What is it specifically about a cookbook that you think really resonates with people? Because it's not just a list of recipes. There's a lot more love in there.

SEAN SHERMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, we're able to put a lot of information into something like this cookbook, Turtle Island, because, yes, it is a recipe and a cookbook at heart, but it's so much more. Because we're talking about people who are currently doing amazing things in these various regions, a lot of the historical information that people might not know about in the various regions that are out there, too. And sometimes those histories can be difficult, but they're also very important.

And I just think that there's so much. So the cookbooks give us an opportunity because food is such an important language for us as humans. It's the one language that we all speak together and that we all appreciate food and love food. And food just opens up so much more doors towards empathy and understanding of diversity.

NINA MOINI: And speaking of that diversity, you talked with a lot of cooks over many regions. And sometimes, it seems like you're such a giant leader in the Indigenous food movement that you try to pay it forward to people and to include other people and other perspectives and lift up others as you go. That seems to be something that's important to you, just from the different times that I've interviewed and spoken with you. How did you decide who to talk to and who to feature?

SEAN SHERMAN: I've made many connections over the years because I started doing this work even before I launched the sous chef company officially back in 2014. I had already been working on this for a few years back before that. And over this journey, I've met so many people because this work has taken me through many different Indigenous communities all over everywhere, you know? And so I've created so many and wonderful connections.

And working with the coauthors, with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly, Kate's ability to have a journalistic approach and to really help me reach out and talk to people was really just kind of an amazing collaboration to come together and work on these pieces. But a lot of it came from all of this adventure, all of this experience of connecting directly with these people and just seeing the immense value that we all have as Indigenous peoples everywhere and how we approach our relationship to the land, to the plants, to the animals, and to our regions and to our cultures.

And that's what this book tried to convey, was just there's so much more we have to learn about living on someplace like North America, just because the colonial diet and the Eurocentric diet has largely ignored so much of the amazing value of knowledge that's out there around indigeneity.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So you're drawing on these different regions, Alaska to Minnesota, to Mexico. What are the ingredients that set apart the upper Midwest, do you think, from the other regions? Can you talk a little bit about the differences?

SEAN SHERMAN: Oh, there's so much, I mean, just because every region is beautiful and amazing. So it's just looking at the knowledge of all these amazing wild plants that you're not going to find in your local grocery store. And so there's so much growing around us. And I think the more plant knowledge we have, the more we see food and flavor around us also and the possibilities of things.

And chefs should be really excited about incorporating more and more flavors that are really, literally, probably right outside their door. And I think that that sets us apart. Because here, in the Midwest, we have all of these amazing trees that give us so much. There's different nut trees. There's different fruit trees and berries and things like that. There's all sorts of wild onions and garlic and gingers and all sorts of amazing, just edible plants and flowers all around us.

And then looking at the Native agriculture of some of the seeds that are still out there that the Indigenous peoples have carried through, through a lot of resilience, those seeds are still very much alive. And we're lucky to have those, and just paying homage to a lot of the people that are still growing those out.

And there's obviously just so much protein diversity around us that we don't typically see. And you could eat anything that's moving. I'm sure humans have over history. But I think it's important to look at protein diversity because there's more things out there than cows, pigs, and chickens, which were introduced to North America.

NINA MOINI: Tell me some of those.

SEAN SHERMAN: So proteins, this book has so much protein in it. Because we have beaver. We have moose. We have bear. We have venison. We have rabbit. We have duck. We have goose. We have all sorts of stuff, even insects. Because we put insects on the menu at Owamni, and people get to try those. Because there's all sorts of protein diversity. So again, there's just so much to talk about and so much to think about.

NINA MOINI: What do you hope people take away from this cookbook?

SEAN SHERMAN: Again, I hope it just opens up eyes of diversity, of understanding the Indigenous communities that might be nearby, some of the difficult histories that Indigenous communities had to go through to still be here today. I feel like we should just open up of how much beautiful regionality we have across North America. Because I feel like today, you can drive across the US and stop at any restaurant, and the menus are going to feel pretty much the same across the board-- some burgers and Caesar salads and fried cauliflower, whatever the trend might be.

But we have so much opportunity for regionality and diversity and embracing Indigenous foods and flavors and supporting Indigenous growers that are still out there and thriving. And I think that there's so much more we can do. And I see such a brighter future for what is American food, what is North American food.

And we can do this work kind all over the world, too, because there's, obviously, Indigenous peoples everywhere. This book isn't really specifically just for Native Americans. But this journey applies to any Indigenous community and culture that's out there that has been deeply affected by colonization and some of the violence that came through because of that.

NINA MOINI: And taking a step back, just with current day, Chef, I do wonder how you're reflecting on or processing just the record levels of hunger and instability that we are seeing across the country right now. Because I know you're passionate about ingredients, but also about accessibility.

SEAN SHERMAN: Absolutely. And when we're looking and studying Indigenous food systems, Indigenous food systems are typically community-based food systems. So everybody's playing a role and everybody's putting a part into helping out with the foods that we're growing. And we waste so much land space. We have so much open lots and lands. And I always say, lawns are stupid because they are, because it's just a waste of space. We should be growing food out everywhere.

And if we had more community-based food systems, like just a food forest in a city where we just take over a park and just plant foods over a couple of acres, you could use that as education. You can have volunteer programs to help tend that. Come harvest season, you can harvest so much, and then investing in commercial kitchens where you can process things and create a large pantry from all of the stuff that's coming out of that particular space.

And if we have multiple growing areas like that, we can create so much food pantry around us. So we're kind of taught that food has to be purchased. Food has to come from a grocery store. But obviously, we can grow food, and we can grow food as a community. And we can find better ways, and we can learn from Indigenous communities how they were able to survive. Because Indigenous communities had the blueprint to live sustainably, no matter where we were globally.

NINA MOINI: Hmm. I love that. I love that you always talk about food as a connector and as sort of a common language. What do you think the foods in your cookbook are saying?

SEAN SHERMAN: Again, I'm just painting a picture for a better future because I feel like I'm a futurist. I feel like I just see a better way for humanity to get away from a lot of the political divide that we're just constantly being barraged with in social medias and stuff and all this division that we're going through. And how do we find ways to create more humanity and empathy, where we can start to understand what's really important to be human?

And one human right should just be access to food and water, no matter where we are. And it shouldn't matter of how much money we have or the color of our skin. It should really just-- every human should have access to food and water. And I think that there's a lot of solutions out there that we can work towards empathy, work towards humanity. But it's going to take some people, some time to disconnect from all of this machine of all this hatred that's out there.

NINA MOINI: Congratulations again, Chef. I understand you're having a celebration tonight, launching the book at the Guthrie in downtown, your new home of your restaurant, Owamni. Tell me about what you're expecting for tonight. What are you excited about for this launch?

SEAN SHERMAN: Oh, it's going to be super fun. We just took over a big theater space in there. And we're doing a full stage show. And we have some--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

SEAN SHERMAN: --special guests. We've got Bobby Wilson, who was on the show Reservation Dogs. We have Trish Cook, who is a local friend and comedian and does a lot of shows around Minneapolis and Minnesota. We've got Francis Lam, who was the editor on the book, and a lot of people know him from Splendid Table, of course.

And we're just going to have a fun night. We're playing live music. We're doing some fun stuff. There's going to be comedy. There's going to be some important pieces. And we're just creating a fun show for everybody. So we still have some tickets available if people want to come down to the Guthrie this evening. The show officially starts at 7:30. So I encourage people to get there a little earlier. And we're just going to have a lot of fun.

NINA MOINI: Cool. Congratulations again, Chef. Thanks so much for your time.

SEAN SHERMAN: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: That was Chef Sean Sherman.