Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Squash and Apples

New Native Cuisine is a term used for a type of indigenous cuisine that uses modern techniques with ancestral ingredients. These ingredients often come from heirloom and native farmers, seed savers, food preservationists, licensed foragers, and even tribal members who sell goods at farmers’ markets. Many Native American chefs across the U.S. are promoting new native cuisine in their restaurants. Chef Naranjo, who has roots in the Pueblo tribe and the Odawa tribe, pays homage to indigenous foods with dishes like piñon-crusted, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, served with a blue corn porridge or fried wild rabbit and blue corn waffles with maple syrup from the Odawa region. Chef Sherman of the Oglala Lakota tribe, showcases the wild plants of the Black Hills and prairies, including wild turnips, bison, and foraged seeds, grains, and dried berries to make homemade granola bars. Many Native chefs have a strong belief in preserving culture and giving thanks to the ingredients and animals, and holding them in high regard because they sustained their people for so many years. Native chefs like Sherman, often avoid heavily processed foods such as refined flours and sugars or dairy. Chef Sherman has reinvented the traditional Indian taco into what he calls an indigenous taco. With a corn cake base, seasoned with juniper ash and fried in a shallow depth of sunflower oil. Toppings include heirloom beans and lean bison meat braised with cedar fronds, or smoked turkey tossed with fried sage. For a vegetarian taco, he would use beans and hominy or summer squash. It would be topped with a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds and a berry sauce called wojapi. Each restaurant has different styles of food, of course, as different tribes had different food sources unique to their region. This isn’t necessarily a new trend, these types of restaurants have been around since the ’70s. But there are many “new native cuisine” type restaurants popping up all over the country. Are you ready to try it out?