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COMIC: One Sioux chef's attempt to reclaim Native American cuisine

Chelsea Saunders for NPR

This comic, illustrated by Chelsea Saunders, is inspired by an interview with chef Sean Sherman from TED Radio Hour's episode The Food Connection.

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/ Chelsea Saunders for NPR
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Chelsea Saunders for NPR

About Sean Sherman

Chef Sean Sherman is the founder of "The Sioux Chef," a company committed to revitalizing and reclaiming Native American cuisine. He is a member of the Ogalala Lakota Sioux tribe. His main culinary focus has been on bringing indigenous food systems like land stewardship and wild food usage to a modern culinary context.

His restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, MN features dishes that prioritize Indigenous-sourced foods native to his region, and leaves out colonial ingredients like beef and chicken to create a "decolonized dining experience." In 2017, he co-authored the cookbook The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen.

Through his nonprofit NATIFS, he also co-founded the Indigenous Food Lab, a professional Indigenous kitchen and training center dedicated to preserving Indigenous food education.

He was the recipient of a 2015 First Peoples Fund Fellowship, the 2018 Bush Foundation Fellowship, the National Center's 2018 First American Entrepreneurship Award, the 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook and a 2019 James Beard Leadership Award.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Rachel Faulkner and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Twitter @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadio@npr.org.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Chelsea Saunders
Rachel Faulkner White
Rachel Faulkner is a producer and editor for TED Radio Hour.
LA Johnson is an art director and illustrator at NPR. She joined in 2014 and has a BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

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