A new cookbook is an increasingly rare occurrence for me as my kitchen routine has changed over the years. And really, there are a host of reasons why I shouldn't have even bought myself a copy of The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen:

-- I shy away from restauranteur cookbooks
-- It's focused on Minnesota and northern woods and plains food, which is pretty much the polar opposite of what I've got here in the humid South
-- It uses a number of highly specialized ingredients that I don't have a prayer of finding (corn mushrooms!)

I ended up getting it because it is co-authored by Beth Dooley, whose book Savoring the Seasons introduced me to the Random House Classic Cookbook series and remains to this day one of my favorite comfort food cookbooks. I'm on my second copy.

So despite my reservations, I took a chance on this book and was quickly won over. It turns out to be more applicable to my current kitchen than you'd think. It's written as a testament to Native American, uh, "cuisine" -- if you keep in mind that word should encompass not just a collection of recipes, but a people's entire relationship with their food. As such, it eschews what Sean Sherman calls "colonialist thought" and emphasizes connections with the natural world -- both being philosophies I have an affinity for.

How that translates into cooking is a rejection of European food and big business processed food (no wheat flour, no sugar, and no dairy at all), and a reliance on locally grown, locally hunted and locally foraged foodstuffs. "Ramps," which I do not really like, are a staple. But so are wild rice, berries of all kinds, a constellation of edible greens, maple sugar, sunflower seeds, nuts, corn, and a rainbow of heirloom beans. Me? I'm not really willing to spend the time foraging for wild food (plus, nowhere near me is undeveloped enough that I can count on things being free of contaminants). But I do have a garden, and most of the recipes in the book can be adapted to what I can get from there.

Plus, the recipes themselves are generally simple and easy to do. The list of "essential equipment" in the book includes a skillet, a knife, a stewpot, and a baking stone. A food dehydrator is noted as "optional." As a test I made the "wild greens pesto" -- which uses sunflower seeds and sunflower or hazelnut oil and I have to say, it was really good.

It's a little weird to be cooking out of a book that acts like garlic doesn't even exist, but I'm finding its whole "less is more, use and appreciate what you have" approach sort of revelatory.

So not a book for the cook who has to rely on the supermarket, but it may well work for the person who can get to a farmer's market. And while not specifically vegetarian or vegan, it is easily adapted to both.… (mais)