[00:00:01.04]
[relaxed guitar music]

[00:00:13.03]
- We cut out all colonial ingredients,

[00:00:14.09]
so there's no dairy or flour, sugar.

[00:00:18.04]
- So we're one of the first and only

[00:00:19.08]
indigenous restaurants in the country.

[00:00:21.04]
We're completely decolonized,

[00:00:22.09]
so we don't have any beef, pork, chicken,

[00:00:25.00]
no dairy, gluten or soy.

[00:00:27.08]
[people chatting indistinctly]

[00:00:35.08]
- [Sean] It's understanding
Native American agriculture,

[00:00:37.07]
seed saving, plant identification,

[00:00:41.01]
understanding how you can
grow with your environment

[00:00:43.04]
and utilize all these plants for food

[00:00:45.04]
and medicine and crafting.

[00:00:47.05]
[intense electronic music]

[00:00:49.05]
- [Voiceover 1] The way we
farm today will not sustain

[00:00:53.04]
human civilization as we know it.

[00:00:56.01]
- [Voiceover 2] There's
not gonna be enough water,

[00:00:57.07]
and there's not gonna be enough land.

[00:01:01.09]
- [Voiceover 1] We are
never going to replace

[00:01:04.02]
traditional agriculture,
but we sure can innovate.

[00:01:08.09]
- [Sean] We can learn
how to at least pivot

[00:01:10.06]
and to work with this changing world.

[00:01:15.00]
[music continues]

[00:01:28.08]
I grew up on Pine Ridge Reservation.

[00:01:31.01]
We were Lakota, just like
a lot of people there.

[00:01:33.06]
I remember us harvesting choke cherries

[00:01:36.09]
throughout my childhood,

[00:01:38.04]
and I can just remember the
smell of the choke cherry sauce

[00:01:41.02]
cooking on the stove.

[00:01:42.04]
We hunted a lot growing up.

[00:01:44.04]
We got a lot of grouse and pheasants,

[00:01:46.08]
and ducks and geese when in season.

[00:01:50.02]
- [Sue] What are you getting here?

[00:01:51.02]
- This is just balsam fir,
and the sap is so good

[00:01:54.08]
because it's antiseptic,

[00:01:56.01]
so you can use it like superglue on cuts.

[00:01:58.07]
And it's also, it's a fire
starter even when wet.

[00:02:10.05]
One of my first big jobs here

[00:02:12.06]
was at a fresh pasta place
in South Minneapolis,

[00:02:16.07]
and just started to learn
a lot starting from there.

[00:02:21.00]
And then my career just took me through

[00:02:22.07]
all sorts of twists and turns--

[00:02:23.09]
so, running Spanish restaurants,

[00:02:25.04]
running Japanese restaurants,

[00:02:26.08]
running, just, American
bistros and farm-to-table

[00:02:30.03]
kind of things, and it was pretty fun.

[00:02:34.09]
[gentle instrumental music]

[00:02:41.03]
I guess I was just very curious

[00:02:42.06]
about the Indigenous
community that was there.

[00:02:45.09]
It reminded me a lot of growing
up with my Lakota family,

[00:02:50.03]
kind of like my distant cousins.

[00:02:51.07]
And then all of a sudden
realized that I knew very little

[00:02:54.06]
about my own heritage food,
even though I discovered so much

[00:02:57.03]
about so many other cultures,
especially European cuisines.

[00:03:02.06]
My ancestors would have had
a really large knowledge

[00:03:05.05]
of plants and how to harvest
them, when to harvest them,

[00:03:08.00]
which parts to harvest.

[00:03:09.09]
So I had to try to figure
out what was still out there,

[00:03:12.08]
understand, like, what were things like

[00:03:14.03]
before European influences.

[00:03:17.04]
All the choke cherry blossoms.

[00:03:19.07]
- Oh, they smell so good.
- Yeah.

[00:03:25.01]
[Dana exhales]

[00:03:27.07]
- It's incredible.

[00:03:29.02]
My mom talked a lot about
our Indigenous background,

[00:03:33.05]
because her father spoke fluent Dakota.

[00:03:36.01]
She also was very much into being outside,

[00:03:40.07]
hiking through the
woods, planting a garden

[00:03:44.02]
and understanding the
wild foods all around us.

[00:03:48.06]
This is so good for you.

[00:03:50.04]
Not only is it nutritious,

[00:03:52.00]
but you can make a poultice with it,

[00:03:55.02]
put it on your cuts and
it'll heal it right up.

[00:04:01.08]
Working at Target was like
going to college for me.

[00:04:04.06]
I never thought I could go
to college for a single day.

[00:04:07.09]
I came from abject poverty,
and it was a miracle

[00:04:10.08]
that I even graduated from high school.

[00:04:12.04]
To have that access to the network

[00:04:16.02]
of these brilliant
business minds at Target

[00:04:19.00]
was such an incredible experience for me.

[00:04:23.07]
- Plants, you know,
there's so much to plants.

[00:04:25.04]
It's understanding there's
so much Native American

[00:04:27.03]
agriculture that was happening.

[00:04:28.04]
I spent quite a few years to identify,

[00:04:29.08]
what are Indigenous foods?

[00:04:31.03]
Not only looking at the past,
but looking at the future.

[00:04:34.02]
How can we bring this knowledge

[00:04:35.06]
to where we are right now today?

[00:04:39.04]
Oh yeah, it's one of the ramps.

[00:04:40.07]
You wanna try the ramps?

[00:04:42.04]
I worked hard to get to the
point where I actually formed

[00:04:45.09]
my own company called the Sioux Chef,

[00:04:47.07]
which is the play on words
using Lakota Sioux, S-I-O-U-X,

[00:04:52.02]
that everything just took off.

[00:04:54.02]
[gentle electronic music]

[00:04:56.09]
- As I started eating

[00:04:58.05]
this bison meatball soup and a salad,

[00:05:02.07]
and he started talking about his vision

[00:05:05.05]
and about the concept behind the company,

[00:05:08.05]
I am not exaggerating
when I say that I felt

[00:05:11.06]
electrical currents running
through my entire body,

[00:05:14.00]
the bottoms of my feet, into the Earth.

[00:05:16.06]
I felt like my ancestors
were there with me.

[00:05:23.05]
- [Sean] And then Dana came
on and just started help

[00:05:25.02]
project managing and
that helped out a ton.

[00:05:28.04]
We were able to grow so much.

[00:05:31.09]
- The Sioux Chef business
is about uncovering

[00:05:35.09]
the Indigenous foods of North America.

[00:05:38.08]
Specifically with the word "Sioux,"

[00:05:40.07]
we're talking about Dakota
foods, Dakota Lakota foods,

[00:05:44.03]
and the Anishinaabe here in Minnesota.

[00:06:02.00]
- [Sean] Our goal is to be a
center point to help create

[00:06:04.06]
more Indigenous food operations,

[00:06:06.02]
working directly with tribal communities.

[00:06:07.08]
- I've seen over the
course of the last year,

[00:06:09.05]
you have just kept refining
and making it better

[00:06:11.08]
and learning ways to make
it more, more authentic.

[00:06:14.09]
And yeah, you're the specialist now.

[00:06:17.07]
- No, I try, I, I want
to learn more, you know?

[00:06:20.04]
- Me too!

[00:06:21.03]
- Everyday, more better. So.

[00:06:24.09]
[gentle instrumental music]

[00:06:30.01]
- There's just so much great
Indigenous-produced food

[00:06:32.02]
coming out of this place right here.

[00:06:33.08]
It's great that they're able
to do this for the community

[00:06:36.01]
and that they keep the
store pretty well stocked

[00:06:39.04]
with some really good food.

[00:06:44.06]
- [Matthew] So for some reason,
for the first year ever,

[00:06:46.08]
our Siberian kale...

[00:06:49.05]
- This is definitely a case,
with this sort of thing,

[00:06:52.00]
with greenhouse-type protection,

[00:06:53.04]
where it's modern technology.

[00:06:55.07]
And to the extent it's being applied here,

[00:06:57.08]
it's being married with
traditional values.

[00:07:01.03]
So, the value of stewarding
the land that you use to grow

[00:07:04.05]
the food on for your kids
for seven generations, right?

[00:07:08.07]
- My mom, her family history

[00:07:11.05]
is from the Shakopee Mdewakanton.

[00:07:13.09]
My grandpa, Clem Felix,
raised his 10 children here.

[00:07:19.08]
- I guess I was always
kind of curious if, like,

[00:07:21.06]
our families knew each
other because, like,

[00:07:23.07]
being around the same area.

[00:07:26.02]
- Do you live right around here?

[00:07:27.04]
- Yeah, I actually live like
maybe a half mile from here.

[00:07:29.08]
- Okay.

[00:07:33.00]
- Diabetes runs rampant
throughout Indian country.

[00:07:35.07]
It's just everywhere.

[00:07:37.04]
So I often think about that,
if that was maybe a path

[00:07:41.09]
that would happen for me
or any of my siblings.

[00:07:44.03]
And, I don't know.

[00:07:45.02]
I kind of credit this farm a lot for that

[00:07:48.06]
we're not all diabetic like
a lot of our ancestors were.

[00:07:53.02]
So this is burdock.

[00:07:54.07]
But burdock, you go to any
really fancy restaurant

[00:07:58.05]
and they might have burdock root on there.

[00:08:01.04]
You gotta dig, like these ones

[00:08:03.00]
probably go down about a good two feet.

[00:08:05.01]
But those roots are really
good, almost like a carrot.

[00:08:09.01]
- [Sue] What did you grow up eating?

[00:08:11.00]
- [laughs] A lot of canned food.

[00:08:12.07]
I think I'm, like, one of the last ones

[00:08:14.07]
from this reservation
that remembers commods.

[00:08:17.09]
That was when the government
would give us the box

[00:08:19.08]
and it'd be all the mushy stuff,

[00:08:22.01]
and the can that just said "Pork" on it,

[00:08:24.09]
had a little outline of a pig.

[00:08:27.01]
When you grow up just eating
that, it's not a far jump

[00:08:30.00]
to just keep eating processed foods.

[00:08:32.06]
And so it's kind of a
challenge to get people

[00:08:36.04]
to eat a lot of these,
like, more fresh stuff,

[00:08:38.06]
but at the same time, the
ones that are shifting over

[00:08:41.04]
are noticing stuff within a generation,

[00:08:44.00]
within their lifetime.

[00:08:47.00]
[gentle instrumental music]

[00:08:54.05]
- "Owamni" means "the
place of swirling waters."

[00:08:56.07]
The beautiful limestone
waterfalls with four beautiful

[00:09:02.02]
islands that was much, much more beautiful

[00:09:04.03]
before colonization,

[00:09:06.01]
that were incredibly sacred
to the Sioux community.

[00:09:11.06]
- And the other one was the squash

[00:09:13.01]
because it takes some time,
and I feel like a scoop

[00:09:16.00]
would just be, like, scoop.

[00:09:17.02]
- Like, maybe smash it down a little bit,

[00:09:18.09]
because you also have to
scoop that elk on there?

[00:09:21.06]
- We should add some
special tacos sometime,

[00:09:24.00]
just on that special list.

[00:09:26.07]
Just as we get more and more efficient.

[00:09:31.05]
We know where all our food's coming from.

[00:09:32.08]
It's really super hyper local.

[00:09:34.02]
We purchase from Indigenous producers.

[00:09:35.08]
We know what's available,

[00:09:36.06]
and we just write our menu around that.

[00:09:38.08]
We don't have to deal
with everybody else's

[00:09:40.08]
supply chain issues, trying to get food

[00:09:42.08]
from all over the country here.

[00:09:48.02]
Our ancestors are proud tonight,

[00:09:50.03]
because we're doing something different.

[00:09:51.09]
We're putting health on the table,

[00:09:53.09]
we're putting culture on the table

[00:09:55.02]
and we're putting our
stories on the table.

[00:09:57.01]
- We plan also to assist on
helping restaurants like ours

[00:09:59.09]
open all over North America,
by other Native people

[00:10:02.09]
seeking access to their
own ancestral foods.

[00:10:05.09]
So thank you so much.

[00:10:09.06]
- [Sean] Returning that
Indigenous education

[00:10:11.02]
is such an important part,
but also just being very aware

[00:10:13.03]
of what's going on with the environment.

[00:10:17.04]
- We think about climate change a lot.

[00:10:19.02]
Humans sort of have this
bizarre thinking, just like,

[00:10:22.07]
"We're on the Earth to take
whatever we can get from it,

[00:10:25.02]
"and we're here to do whatever we want!"

[00:10:28.07]
The fact is that we are of the Earth.

[00:10:31.00]
We were from the Earth, we
were created by this planet.

[00:10:34.09]
The earth is literally
what we were made from.

[00:10:38.05]
- [Sean] We just have to be way smarter

[00:10:39.09]
with what we're doing

[00:10:40.07]
with all of this resource
that we need to survive,

[00:10:43.05]
because we're just
creating deserts out there,

[00:10:45.06]
and we have to make some changes.

[00:10:48.00]
I think that if we're in
tune, we can learn how

[00:10:50.04]
to at least pivot and to work
with this changing world.

[00:10:54.01]
But we're going to have to be very aware

[00:10:56.00]
and understand that things
are going to be different.

[00:11:03.01]
[upbeat instrumental music]

[00:11:22.08]
[music continues]