The United States is known for being a great fusion of people, food and culture. In major cities across the country, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, people can find almost any cuisine to suit their heart’s desire.
However, as Chef Sean Sherman of the Oglala Lakota Tribe has noted in the past, these towns have few, if any, restaurants that focus on the native cuisine of the more than 570 recognized Native American tribes and Alaska Native entities. Each of these tribes has its own food traditions.
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Eateries like Watecha Bowl, Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery and Owamni want to change that by reviving or paying tribute to the age-old techniques and flavors passed down from generation to generation.
“We all have the same mission of food sovereignty,” Lawrence West, owner and entrepreneur of Watecha Bowl, told CBS News. “And introduce the world to Indian food.”
West is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe.
“The things I cook and the way I prepare food is very important because it just represents a certain heritage of people,” he said.
Restaurant options across the country
West’s restaurant Watecha Bowl is a fast food restaurant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota that serves dishes and flavors from the Lakota Nation.
“I have had the privilege of feeding people from all over the world,” West said. “I’ve fed people from all fifty states.”
One of the things his restaurant is doing this year is giving out an Indian taco in exchange for toys that will be donated to local Native American children in foster care, according to its Facebook page with 30,000 followers.
Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery is a fast-casual restaurant serving homemade Native American cuisine in Denver, Colorado. The goal is to “rebuild America’s original food system.”
Co-founder and president Ben Jacobs told CBS News that he wants to make his kitchen accessible to everyone while also offering members of the indigenous community a space to feel at home. He is a tribal member of the Osage Nation in northeastern Oklahoma.
Tacobe
He said he was inspired to open the eatery because native foods seemed to have no place in the culinary industry when it opened in 2008. More than 16 years later, Tocabe’s food continues to share stories of community, culture and identity.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, chef Sean Sherman’s restaurant Owammni aims to “decolonize” the dining experience by sourcing ingredients from indigenous food producers that would have been found in North America before European colonization.
“It’s unfortunate that this restaurant is unique. Part of the goal is how do we normalize something that is healthy and indigenous? We’re showing a model that is possible,” Sherman wrote in a recent blog post on the restaurant’s website.
What are the essential dishes to try?
According to West, wojapi is a must-have. The thick berry sauce is one of the most traditional dishes of the American plains. It can be used as a dip, on fry bread, meat or even as is.
Next is bison, especially chislic, invented in South Dakota. Third is wild rice with maple syrup.
Frybread is one of the most popular Indian dishes. But West said this was embraced out of necessity when the U.S. government enforced assimilation with stipends during the land grab and the Trail of Tears.
However, Jacobs emphasizes that ingredients found in local supermarkets, such as corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and chilies, are sourced “here” from America. These are also native foods. He said he hopes all Americans should understand where our food comes from and appreciate the story behind it.
The Tacobe Indigenous Marketplace offers common or less common ingredients, but they come from indigenous producers on tribal lands.
Tacobe
A history of food
Indian food is not mainstream for several reasons.
Sherman pointed to the idea of “manifest destiny,” or the 19th-century belief that the U.S. was “destined” by God to expand across North America to spread democracy and capitalism.
West and Sherman also pointed to “forced assimilation,” or the U.S. government’s goal of having indigenous people adopt the customs, values, and behaviors of the dominant culture. Laws like the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Homestead Act of 1862, the Dawes Act of 1887, and others made this possible.
According to Britannica, The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation of indigenous peoples in the southeastern US in the 1830s. Military records estimate that approximately 100,000 indigenous people have been forcibly removed from their homes.
Policies like these disrupted indigenous food systems, leading to food insecurity and poor health outcomes, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
The CBPP said the U.S. has made treaties with tribes since the 18th century promising to provide rations to indigenous people, giving them foods such as lard, wheat and flour, which were often unhealthy.
According to 2023 US Census data, approximately 1.3% of Americans identify as American Indian or Native American.
Jacobs said that after the U.S. government spent centuries deconstructing indigenous food systems, “we’re trying to rebuild them.”
“I think we’re at a point now where we can control our food again, which means we can control our future,” he said.
