[ CULINARY POINT OF VIEW]

by Kelly Hensel

Get connected. To get Sean Sherman’s recipe for Cedar Maple Tea, visit www.ift.org/ Join an IFT Division, Engage with Professional Peers. Rediscovering Native American Cuisine food-technology. Focusing on specific areas of food science and technology, IFT divisions provide you with opportunities to connect with other food scientists, ask questions of the experts, and get involved as a volunteer. rowing up on Pine Ridge Canada. It’s such a unique staple Reservation in , that grows in such a small area—if Division volunteers may be eligible to receive funding to support their travel to IFT’s popular annual event. GChef Sean Sherman’s child- you look at it on a worldwide Some divisions also offer undergraduate and graduate student scholarships. hood diet consisted primarily of scale—so it’s really a special com- processed and canned government- modity. And, of course, there are IFT’s 24 divisions include: donated commodities. At 13, lots of different kinds of animals, but Sherman got his fi rst restaurant job our passion has really been more Aquatic Food Products washing dishes, and quickly moved about plants. © Mette Nielsen Biotechnology onto the line, continuing restaurant Q: You’ve cooked for people in Carbohydrate work through college and beyond. India, Italy, and the United Nations. Dairy Foods He has spent the past 10 years What kind of responses have Free to members! focused on uncovering the cooking you received? Education, Extension, & Outreach techniques, ingredients, and fl avors Sherman: I think people Food Chemistry IFT members also have of the Sioux cuisine. Along are really interested in what we Food Engineering access to IFT Connect, the way, he launched the Tatanka © Heidi Ehalt are doing, especially right here Food Laws & Regulations our networking and Truck in , a food truck focused on indige- in the United States. But we’ve traveled to Europe, nous food, as well as Sioux Chef, a catering company. India, and Mexico and everyone seems extremely Food Microbiology knowledge-sharing Currently, he is working on a cookbook and planning interested in understanding what the true base of Food Packaging community. to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant devoted to American food is, and the fact that you can’t talk Foodservice indigenous foods of Minnesota and the Dakotas. about American history without the indigenous his- Fruit & Vegetable Products Q: What foods are at the heart of the indigenous tory because that’s where it began. International dishes of the Dakota and Minnesota territories? You have to go back to those roots to fully under- Sean Sherman: The Dakota and Minnesota terri- stand your region, and I think for the longest time, Marketing & Management tories make up a really large area with lots of people were refusing to think about those that they Muscle Foods different kinds of terroir—everything from the wood- displaced and the lands that they took over. They Nonthermal Processing lands and the Great Lakes to the really fertile plains were happy to write their own history starting at the Nutraceuticals & Functional Foods and grasslands. You also have areas like the point of their arrival, but there’s so much more history Nutrition Badlands, which is almost like desert landscapes that extends beyond that. Most of the rest of the immediately off of grassy plains. Then you get into the world understands that because they still pay hom- Product Development , which is kind of an anomaly when it age to things that happened thousands of years ago Protein comes to small mountain ranges. It’s a bubble moun- and for us it’s only been a couple hundred years. Quality Assurance tain range so it kind of bubbled from the bottom up. I feel like the positive work that we’re doing—by Refrigerated & Frozen Foods When you are at the top of the mountains you can fi nd bringing to light this healthy, local indigenous food Sensory & Consumer Sciences lots of ocean bed seashells and things like that. base—can really help redefi ne American and There’s so much diversity in that range of terroir, North American food in general. America Toxicology & Safety Evaluation so for us it’s about looking at the different regions and shouldn’t be defi ned by hamburgers, Coca-Cola, what kind of plants grow there. We’re looking at the and craft beer, and Canada shouldn’t just be communities that live there, their culture, and the way poutine. By understanding your indigenous

they handle food. history and the foods that people utilized, it Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society So, for example, there’s timpsila [prairie turnip] on makes for a deeper and richer story to tell. FT the plains and all sorts of different herbs and varieties like purple conefl ower, wild garlic, amaranth, and This interview Kelly Hensel Senior Digital Editor bergamot. When you get into the woodlands there’s has been edited • [email protected] different kinds of berries. We also have this wild rice and condensed ift.org/divisions that grows in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and up into for clarity. 03.17 • www.ift.org 15 pg

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