With his first buzzy cookbook, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen—a collection of innovative recipes built around clean, locally-sourced ingredients—Oglala Lakota Sioux chef Sean Sherman won a 2018 James Beard Award. At the time, Sherman wanted to eliminate colonial influences from Indigenous cuisine—including elements such as dairy, chicken, pork, wheat flour, and even black pepper—and go back to basics with wild or foraged ingredients. “I wanted to see what it would taste like, to have purely Indigenous ingredients in those recipes,” says Sherman. “And to show that we can still make a lot—even with that challenge.”

Today, Sherman is now following up the critically acclaimed cookbook with his second highly anticipated release. The book, titled Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America, goes across the continent region by region, and highlights different local flavors and cuisines. Once again, Sherman does so by focusing on decolonized ingredients, utilizing the fresh game, fish, or fruits and vegetables that were used pre-colonization. “There is a vast diversity of Indigeneity across North America,” Sherman says. “I wanted to tell the story of what food looks like when you take out colonial lines completely. Some places are extremely distinct—and some places have a little more commonality with others.”

Geographically, the book centers around the traditional Indigenous story of Turtle Island—a term used by many Indigenous nations across North America, which tells the story of how the continent’s landmass was formed on the back of a giant turtle. “[In the book,] I thought it would be cool to break North America up into 13 regions, because there are 13 segments on the back of turtle shells,” says Sherman. With that focus in mind, Sherman brings readers across the continent—from Northern Alaska to the Great Plains to southern Mexico—and examines different dishes that are popular in each region, then takes them to a new, contemporary level. “The book wasn’t meant to be a report on what traditional foods were,” says Sherman. “This is a book for the future: I wanted to showcase the possibilities of what we still have, and what we can create.”

The foods from each region offer a historical glimpse into what many Indigenous communities ate centuries ago. In the Great Plains section, for one, Sherman cooks up recipes like braised bison oxtail or rabbit stew that the Lakota and other tribes in the area often enjoyed. In the Northern Alaska and Canadian Arctic chapter, the seal tartar and kelp-wrapped arctic char reflect the fresh fish that the Inupiat or Yupik communities typically served (and still do). While he wanted to showcase a wide variety of different cuisines and approaches, Sherman says he was surprised to find a commonality between the various regions—that being a shared spirit of sustainability and mindfulness for the ingredients used. “As Indigenous peoples, we are the original blueprint of how to live sustainably in whatever land space we might be living on,” says Sherman.

EvotoPhoto: Courtesy of Clarkson Potter

With his new book, Sherman adds that he wanted to embrace the beauty of specificity, nailing down recipes that make use of hyper-localized ingredients that are not always easy to find. “Some of these dishes you might not ever make, unless you’re in the right community at the right season at the right time,” he says. “You won’t find some of these ingredients at Whole Foods.” Sherman also hopes to introduce a new set of readers to Indigenous customs, and to showcase how they have been innovating with foods for centuries. “I hope that it helps to start normalizing seeing more Indigenous foods, and understanding more Indigenous peoples and cultures that are still there today,” he says. “We’re lucky to still have so many amazing Indigenous cultures alive and thriving today—and we barely scratched the surface.”

Below, in honor of his new release, Sherman shares a new recipe from the cookbook with Vogue—a cozy garden vegetable soup with dumplings from the southern Mexico region that is perfect for the autumnal season. “Chochoyotes are a classic little dumpling, usually served in a broth,” says Sherman. “It’s a fun and easy dumpling to make, and really hearty when you put it in the broth. And, of course, you have to give it a little spice and heat!”

Sopa de Milpa con Chochoyotes y Chipilín (Garden Vegetable Soup with Dumplings)

Photo: David Alvarado

Just as they have in other parts of Turtle Island, the Maya people in the Yucatán and other Indigenous peoples in central and southern Mexico interplant corn, beans, squash, chiles, tomatoes, and other crops in a system known as the milpa.

Sopa de milpa is a soup that reflects what might be growing in people’s gardens at any time, changing from season to season and cook to cook. When they’re available, I like to add chipilín leaves to this soup, which taste like a milder version of spinach with a green bean edge. This shrub grows wild in South and Central America and southern Mexico. You can occasionally find people cultivating the leaves in the United States, too, but you can substitute baby spinach.

To make the soup more filling, I slip chochoyotes—simple dumplings made of masa—into the broth, but you could skip them if you prefer.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces fresh masa or use masa harina
• 3 tablespoons avocado or sunflower oil
• 1 bunch chipilín leaves (picked from the stems) or 3 cups baby spinach
• ½ medium white onion, chopped
• Sea salt
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalapeño or serrano chile, stemmed, seeded if desired, and thinly sliced
• 1 pound summer squash, such as zucchini, cut lengthwise into quarters and crosswise into ½-inch pieces
• 2 medium tomatoes, cored and chopped
• 6 cups roasted bird stock or vegetable broth
• 1 sprig of epazote
• 2 ears corn, husked and cut crosswise into 1-inch-thick rounds
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 12 squash flowers, stemmed, halved lengthwise, stamen or pistil removed

Instructions

1. Mix the masa with 1 tablespoon of the oil.
2. Finely chop half of the chipilín leaves. Add those to the masa and use your hands to mix them in. Cover the masa while you form the dumplings and keep the dumplings covered once they are made.
3. Set a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet or cutting board. Using a teaspoon, scoop the masa into ½-inch balls and place them on the parchment. Press your thumb into each ball to create a divot in the center.
4. In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil over medium heat. Add the onion, season with salt, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until translucent. Add the garlic and chile and cook for about 1 minute, or until fragrant.
5. Add the squash and tomatoes, season with salt, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to break down and release their juices.
6. Add the stock, the remaining chipilín leaves, and the epazote. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium so the soup simmers. Add the corn cob rounds and cook for about 4 minutes, or until softened.
7. Gently drop the masa dumplings into the soup and simmer for 7 to 10 minutes, until they are cooked through and tender. Be careful not to overcook, or they will begin to fall apart in the broth.
8. Discard the epazote sprig and add the vinegar to the soup. Taste and season with more salt as needed. Stir in the halved squash blossoms, let them wilt, then serve.