Sean Sherman, The Sioux Chef: ‘This Is The Year To Rethink Thanksgiving’

ILLUSTRATION: YENWEI LIU/HUFFPOST; PHOTO: HEIDI EHALT Everything Thanksgiving: Get all our Thanksgiving recipes, how-to’s and more! Sean Sherman won a 2018 James Beard Award for his cookbook, “The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen,” and a 2019 James Beard Leadership Award for his efforts toward the “revitalization and awareness of indigenous food systems in a modern culinary context.” In this Voices in Food story, as told to Julie Kendrick, Sherman discusses the harmful lie of the traditional Thanksgiving story and suggests that this year — maybe more than any other — is the right time to change our understanding of the past and reframe our thinking about what we’re eating on Thanksgiving Day. “One thing this pandemic has taught us is how vulnerable we are to outside sources for our food and nutrition.. Indigenous communities had wonderful systems to utilize the things around them for food.. We can reclaim that resourcefulness.” This is the year to rethink Thanksgiving. We can all acknowledge the true history of the land we’re on and honor the hardships endured by those who came before and allowed us to be where we are today.” There are so many parts of our Thanksgiving menu that have an Indigenous American background, like corn, squash, wild turkey, wild rice and cranberries. On The Sioux Chef’s latest projects My co-owner and co-founder, Dana Thompson, and I just opened the Indigenous Food Lab in Minneapolis’ Midtown Global Market.