Sean Sherman

Sherman was born in 1974 and grew up on his grandparents' ranch on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.[4]^:1[5] He hunted and foraged from an early age, recalling his grandfather giving him a shotgun on his seventh birthday.[4]^:77[6] He grew up eating many government commodity foods[6] such as cereal, shortening, and canned hash, which he cites as the norm he seeks to depart from.[7] He attended Black Hills State University.[8] His grandparents were fluent in Lakota.[4]^:1

Sherman got his first restaurant job washing dishes at 13, soon moving onto the line.[7] He spent a summer working for the US Forest Service in the Black Hills, identifying plants.[9][10] He spent most of his twenties working in a series of Minneapolis restaurants[11] and by 27 was working as an executive chef.[12] By 29 he was burnt out and spent some time in Mexico regrouping; while in Puerto Vallarta he spent time with some Huichol people and had an "epiphany", saying: "After seeing how the Huicholes held onto so much of their pre-European culture through artwork and food, I recognized I wanted to know my own food heritage. What did my ancestors eat before the Europeans arrived on our lands?”[11]

In 2014 Sherman founded indigenous food education business and caterer The Sioux Chef. The Washington Post called it "a homonym to another ... culinary concept",[2] the sous-chef.

He founded the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS) with his business and life partner Dana Thompson.[6][10] The organization includes the Indigenous Food Lab, which works with ethnobotanists to record the earliest names of native plants.[6]

Sherman foraging wild ramps

In 2017 Sherman co-authored The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, published by the University of Minnesota,[6] which won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook.[13] In order to create the book's recipes, he interviewed older community members and searched archives for descriptions of traditional Lakota foods.[5] Recipes in the book contain no dairy, wheat, beef, pork, or cane sugar, as these are non-indigenous ingredients, brought to North America by European colonizers.[5][13] Sherman describes the recipes as "hyperlocal, ultraseasonal, uber-healthy [and] most of all, it's utterly delicious."[5] Publishers Weekly called the book, "an illuminating guide to Native American food that will enthrall home cooks and food historians alike."[14] That same year he prepared a six-course dinner at the James Beard House.[2]

In 2018 he participated in a National Museum of American History roundtable at the Food History weekend event.[5] During the event he prepared a traditional dish, Mag˘áksic˘a na Psíŋ Wasná, duck and wild rice pemmican.[5]

In 2019 Sherman received a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, which recognizes people and organizations that "(work) to change our food world for the better."[15]

The New York Times called his style "colorful and elegant".[7]

Sherman abandoned the use of ingredients that are not endemic to North America[16] after having "an epiphany" while working at a restaurant in Mexico that used local ingredients[17] and realizing that the traditional foods of the Oglala were "completely unrepresented in American cuisine."[18] He objects to indigenous cuisine being called "the next big thing", saying, "This is not a trend. It's a way of life."[2] He told the James Beard Foundation, "We're not trying to cook like it's 1491. We're trying to take knowledge from the past and evolve it for today."[12]

Along with some other Native American chefs,[2] Sherman rejects frybread, often associated with "traditional" Native American cuisine, calling it "everything that isn't Native American food"[19] and writing that it represents "perseverance and pain, ingenuity and resilience."[4]^:9 While a symbol of resilience,[2] as it was developed out of necessity using government-provided flour, sugar, and lard, these chefs also consider it a symbol of colonial oppression,[2] as the ingredients were being provided because the government had moved the people onto land that could not support growing traditional staples like corn and beans.[20][21] Frybread's significance to Native Americans has been described as complicated[20] and their relationship with it conflicted.[22]

Sherman lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[6] He has one son.[23]

• 2018 James Beard Award, Best American Cookbook[13]
• 2019 James Beard Leadership Award[15]

• The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017)[2][4][6][14]

• Ingredients native to the Americas

• Official website