Session 47 summary
Reviving Indigenous Food System- Sean’s focus is on indigenous food because as a chef he studied a lot about foods all around the world. He didn’t go to a culinary school but started working in restaurants from an early age of 12 and all through his schooling. He moved from South Dakota to Minnesota where he started his career as a chef, he was about 26 years old then and he got to learn many different styles like Spanish food, French food, Mexican food, Japanese food and so forth. He was living in Mexico for a while where he got the epiphany of doing what he is currently doing because he recognized the complete absence of Native American indigenous foods, not just in restaurant form,cookbooks or anything but also just in his own knowledge base. He realized that he knew very little about Lakota foods, he could name a handful of recipes that were truly Lakota and had not been influenced by, especially, European food ways. This sent him on a path to try and understand what his ancestors were eating, what they were studying, what they were utilizing, what they were trading and all the things they were growing. It was pretty eye-opening for him to just see that there were so little help there, it became a question that why aren’t there more Native American foods out there, why aren’t there more indigenous restaurants featuring the land that they are standing on. So not only did this become a study of food but it really became a study of history because he realized how short this history was of colonialism and United States against his people.
He was born in 1974 and 100 years before, prior to his birth in 1874, his Lakota ancestors were still living under plains in United States and they still retained 100% of their indigenous knowledge base and indigenous foodways because they didn’t discover gold until 1876. So, within less than a century so much destruction happened to their culture and it became a question of what did they loose and why, because for a lot of people in the U.S. they don’t teach about this part of the history, they focus on the colonial beginnings of the United States and skip over a lot of really hard truths like how the United States acquired so much land space by removing and taking out so many indigenous people. Every time the United States discovered that they could take over indigenous land space and commodify it, they focused on how they could section it, sell it and then they can make an immense amount of money from it at the same time deluding enslaved people from not only Africa but also a lot of enslaved indigenous people and forced them to build the present colonial structure of the United States. It is important to know that all of North America’s history starts with indigenous history as it is all across the globe.
When talking about pre-colonial foods, it is important to start from the base of understanding what does colonialism means first. It is the practice by which a powerful country controls another country or countries, in order to become richer, it happened all across history usually stemming from the European power. It was not just in North America but also everywhere-South America, Africa, South East Asia, India, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Middle East. This effective colonialism is seen in a very short time period in human history erasing cultures, homogenizing cultures and destroying cultures across the world. There are thousands of indigenous cultures out there and the present generation should be protecting these cultures and not continue the colonial regime of trying to homogenize everything and turning everything into one way or another western.
During the colonial days there was a massive loss of indigenous food ways, so much destruction of crop and seeds. George Washington had ordered General Sullivan to take out as many indigenous people as possible in the Northeast which is today the New York State, which really shows how the US government presidents really treat indigenous people of North America till now. General Sullivan accomplished his order in a single summer of 1779 and wiped out very old civilizations. To wipe them out they actively decided to wipe out the American bison to extinction with the sole purpose of hurting indigenous communities all across the world who were relying on this animal. A massive destruction of the environment is also seen which is catastrophic because the indigenous communities lost so much. The most damaging thing to the indigenous people was that not only surviving acts of genocide but the loss of indigenous education – the tools passed down by the ancestors to live sustainably. The indigenous education is something really important which was replaced by westernized education which made them lose a lot of indigenous knowledge like language , culture, music, songs, art , story , how to find and identify foods , process foods, preserve foods , how to feed people all those recipes. The grandparents who were supposed to inherit 100 years of indigenous knowledge were forced into the western education system and boarding schools and forced to go to these military run schools which were very strict, very harsh and the children had to endure. They had to learn English and Christianity and completely change their ways and were punished for speaking their own languages, singing their own songs. Most of the kids perished during this time as the kids had to endure, mental abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse etc. and the trauma remains as it regenerates through the surviving family.
Growing up in post-colonial native America, Sean grew up with government foods which is a lot of staples it is great that he had access to food but it had only been an adjustment to the natives because these foods were packed with way too much sodium, were over processed, too many carbs and overall they are just bad for the natives. Sean grew up with a lot of powdered milk, he is grateful for the availability of food but it was food psoriasis for the natives because they didn’t eat the kind of food the Northern Europeans did so they did not have the same kind of insulin to break down the new diet. So, almost 60% of the communities faced type 2 diabetes and heart diseases. United States they adopted foods like the Indian tacos which was celebrated across the natives, they used native grains and other things and made fried bread and topping it with ingredients which had nothing to do with indigenous people.
North America is very diverse, with artic, north artic, mountainous regions, plains, swamps and so forth, there is a lot of biodiversity out there. From the indigenous perspective, there is a lot of indigenous diversity and it should be protected. The indigenous education that helps natives survive can be applied to anywhere to break down and push against westernization and focus on what is really important. For natives the plant knowledge is the biggest power so when Sean visited north eastern communities in India, he found that they had the same values because all indigenous people are connected to the nature, to the world, they understand the plant, they see nothing but food and plant around them and what to do with all this plant life everywhere, pushing back against the colonial values of how do colonizers see the world how can they make money from the world around us and indigenous people see how to stay healthy and happy with the communities and the world around them. Indigenous knowledge is to understand how the indigenous people survived long before colonialism came to and understanding the various uses and medicinal qualities and how the new generation can work backwards to reclaim a lot of these indigenous food ways and understanding how important it is for the people to maintain these lifestyles and this knowledge can be pass on further to the next generation. In Minnesota the natives have a beautiful rice called wild rice that only grows on the lakes, wild and one has to go out in a canoe to get it. It is a battle with the indigenous communities and big oil companies who want to put pipes in these lakes and disturb the delicate ecosystem. Water plants in general is a great study because indigenous people all over the place utilize these plants. There’s a whole other food system of the people who live in the coastal region or in desert region where plants seem like they would hurt but the indigenous people see nothing but food in these regions. Fo proteins they have the American bison and the indigenous people used every part of this animal for everything because we didn’t really have the ability to be wasteful. There’s so much amazing food and protein out there which are not present in the European people’s diet.
Sean owns a restaurant, one of the first indigenous focused restaurants in the entire United States called ‘Owamni by The Sioux Chef’ where he cut out all European colonial ingredients that didn’t exist there, the restaurant removed wheat flour, dairy product, cane sugar, beef, pork and chicken which for them is a healthier diet, showcasing a lot of different stuff. They use a ton of insects which people are buying something which isn’t found in the normal part of the diet in the United States and they are pushing that forward because insects can be tasty and hold a lot of cultural relevance.
Agriculture is amazing in the United States, people think that this is the epitome of agriculture but indigenous people know what the damage is with the style of industrial agriculture and how it’s turning the soil with the amount of chemicals it takes to maintain this style of agriculture. These chemicals are extremely dangerous because it is not only getting into all of the foods, it are also getting into the waterways of the communities which get inside the households then gets into the bodies and no one knows what is going to happen to humans by ingesting micro doses of these dangerous chemicals over the long period of time and the health effects its going to have. There have been great diversity in the Native American agriculture as the seeds carry with it a strong sense of culture because it comes from very specific people and very specific places and there is so much biodiversity and the Native American agriculture is just endangered not just there but across the globe. It’s important to protect these diversities and store them. WhatSean is trying to do by taking in all this and trying howto pay homage to the indigenous knowledge and how to utilize their knowledge. Sean started by training the young chefs to be outdoors, connect with nature and learn how to identify foods. The technology today provides phone apps where one can recognize the plants by simply taking its pictures which helps in opening people’s eyes and see nothing but food everywhere and taking the time and creating something modern and reinvent what is modern indigenous pantries and not recreate the past and cook like the ancestors. They’re just trying to understand how do they move forward, how do they reclaim and how do they create indigenous foods for the future. They are able to create business models by only using indigenous ingredients which is very healthy for them and making food taste exactly like where they are and pushing forward with the modern sense of indigenous culinary. It is great to put artistry on plates but for them keeping the food very simple and beautiful is important. Food is a very powerful language because food is the one thing that is common among humans all across the globe and something that makes people curious about other cultures. A lot of the cultures can be retained through the foods and it is the language that Sean chose to use because it is so powerful, people love food and for Sean it is an effort to get back into the indigenous communities so they can celebrate it and have access to it because most of the indigenous communities today still don’t have access to their own indigenous foods which is why he is working so hard to do what he is doing. A lot of this work is with their NGO, a non-profit called NATIFS and under this his workers try to design an indigenous culinary infrastructure out there because food should be the centre of it of everything. His focus with the nonprofit is to create access to indigenous education and indigenous food. He created a ‘non-profit kitchen’ under the non-profit called Indigenous Food Lab, a place where they can do a lot of research and development for their own knowledge of food ways and also help other indigenous communities create indigenous culinary apparitions for themselves to help normalise indigenous food access out there. They focus on the idea that there is indigenous-led kitchen focused on healthy indigenous food and which prioritises purchasing from indigenous producers and lead the new generation of food professionals. Sean believes that people should be focused on growing as many gardens as possible and we have the ability to landscape anywhere we want.
About the Speaker
Chef Sean Sherman
Culinary Leader
Founder & CEO, The Sioux Chef
Co-founder, NĀTIFS (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems)
Co-owner, Owamni by The Sioux Chef
Minneapolis, USA
www.seansherman.com
www.sioux-chef.com
www.natifs.org
www.owamni.com
Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota, born in Pine Ridge, has been cooking across the US and World for the last 30 years. His main culinary focus has been on the revitalization and awareness of indigenous foods systems in a modern culinary context. Sean has studied on his own extensively to determine the foundations of these food systems which include the knowledge of Native American farming techniques, wild food usage and harvesting, land stewardship, salt and sugar making, hunting and fishing, food preservation, Native Americanmigrational histories, elemental cooking techniques, and Native culture and history in general to gain a full understanding of bringing back a sense of Native American cuisine to today’s world.
