Meet the Chef Reviving Centuries-Old Indigenous Recipes for Today’s Table
These inspiring dishes from chef Sean Sherman’s epic new cookbook, Turtle Island, give a taste of the ongoing evolution of Indigenous Western cuisine.
Reprinted with permission from ‘Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America’ by Sean Sherman with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly © 2025 by Sean Sherman. Photographs copyright © 2025 by David Alvarado. Illustrations copyright © 2025 by Jimmy Dean Horn Jr. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Long before there was a border to cross or map to trace, the land we call the West was part of Turtle Island, a name used by many Native cultures for the North American continent, rooted in creation stories and a shared worldview of balance between people and place. In his new book, Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America, Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman brings readers into that worldview, region by region and recipe by recipe.
Sherman, a three-time James Beard Award winner and the force behind groundbreaking restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, has spent the last decade working to revitalize Native food systems and reintroduce Indigenous cuisine to the American table. His approach is thoughtful and deeply researched, shaped by time spent in tribal communities across the continent and grounded in his own memories of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The book reflects that scope and care, combining accessible recipes with stories of landscape, culture, and survival.
Reprinted with permission from ‘Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America’ by Sean Sherman with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly © 2025 by Sean Sherman. Photographs copyright © 2025 by David Alvarado. Illustrations copyright © 2025 by Jimmy Dean Horn Jr. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
The foods featured in Turtle Island are tied to place and season. Wild rice harvested from canoes in the Great Lakes, corn and chiles dry-farmed in the Southwest, fish pulled from icy northern waters, and game meats like duck and bison reflect centuries of adaptation to local ecosystems. Sherman builds his recipes around these ingredients, drawing from both traditional techniques and modern kitchen tools. Dishes like sunflower seed “risotto” or wild rice-crusted walleye cakes aren’t reinterpretations so much as continuations.
For Western cooks, the book is a powerful invitation to reconnect with the natural abundance of our region through a lens that predates state lines. The Pacific Northwest’s salmon runs, California’s native greens and acorns, the high desert’s cacti and squash—all of it appears here with clarity and respect. The recipes, organized by ecological region, read like maps of Indigenous ingenuity.
Sherman’s broader mission is to support food sovereignty for Native communities—ensuring access to not just healthy ingredients but also knowledge of how to grow, gather, and prepare them.
Below, we’ve selected a few recipes from Turtle Island that speak to the depth and variety of Native foodways. Whatever you prepare, you’ll be cooking with a deeper awareness of the land beneath your feet—and the cultures that have long known how to feed themselves from it.
Try These Recipes at Home
Maple-Glazed Salmon
Salmon is a sacred food for Indigenous peoples in the Columbia Plateau, just as it is for people near the coast. While maple trees are not native in the region, bigleaf maple trees grow not too much farther west. Syrup from this Western maple is deep in flavor with molasses-like notes. If you can find it, use it in this glaze, which is enlivened with vinegar and sumac, but any maple syrup will work well.
Sweet Pinyon Griddle Cakes with Chia Berry Jam
During pinyon season, you sometimes see sweet or savory pancakes using these pine nuts. At times, they are folded into a batter whole. Other times, they’re ground into a flour, as they are here, to create almost buttery-rich cakes. Instead of supplementing the cakes with wheat flour the way people commonly do now, these honey-sweetened cakes are made almost exclusively with the pine nuts and just a little bit of cassava flour, which gives them a lightly springy texture and helps them hold their shape.
To quickly thicken a berry jam to serve alongside, I reach for another regional staple: desert chia seeds. It’s okay to use store-bought pine nuts and chia seeds here.
West Coast Oysters with Dried Salmon, Manzanita Powder, and Wood Sorrel
To me, this is the taste of Northern California in one bite: a local oyster, topped with feathery bits of dried salmon, sweet-tangy manzanita berry powder, and lemony wood sorrel. I made 500 of these oysters once at the Worlds of Flavor conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa, with only one culinary student helping me. Hopefully, shucking two dozen oysters won’t feel too taxing.
Get the Book
Courtesy of Clarkson Potter
Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America, by Sean Sherman with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly.
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