Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: Over the past few weeks, as part of the North Star Journey project, Writer and Chef Mecca Bos has shared culturally important dishes prepared by local chefs who now make Minnesota home. Today, she takes us on a journey to learn about a much older local approach to food.

MECCA BOS: The tall grasses are alive with the sounds of birds and insects at dream of wild health farm in Hugo, Minnesota. It's one of the few native led farms in the Twin Cities. We're foraging for good things to eat with hope Flanagan the farm's community outreach director. She knows what's safe to eat and what'll make you sick. She peels open a seed pod from a shrub she recognizes and pops it in her mouth.

HOPE FLANAGAN: The first flavor to me is like a lemon lime, the outside casing, and then it's like tingly. Oh, wait a minute, it tastes like black pepper. Oh no, my mouth is wrong.

[LAUGHING]

Oh, yes, this one quickly ash.

MECCA BOS: Elders began teaching her about the plants around her when she was two years old, she recalls. Now some six decades on she's still learning and she carries that expertise and the responsibilities that go with it through traditional practice.

HOPE FLANAGAN: For me, I have to thank these plants. Every year, I go through any plant I've gathered, make sure that I walk in a certain way so that I'm not disrespectful to the plants.

MECCA BOS: As we walk, helps Stoops to pick up leaves and berries, petals and seeds, squishing, sniffing, and tasting. With a great laugh, she requests that we let her know if she has green things in her teeth. She often does, she says.

HOPE FLANAGAN: This is our lamb's quarters. Anything you do with spinach, you could do with lamb's quarters, and it's even higher in nutrition. So this is probably one of those that people will tear out of their garden and go like, throw it away. Throw it away. Like, no, don't throw it away. Eat it.

MECCA BOS: But before she picks anything, she puts down an offering of tobacco.

HOPE FLANAGAN: This understanding is, if we don't thank them, they're just going to leave us. And those are our teachers. Those are our elders. What are we going to do then?

MECCA BOS: Hope says she's not much of a cook. So we asked renowned Chef Sean Sherman to create a dish using what we gather. His restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis just won the 2022 James Beard Award for Best New restaurant. He says, by enticing people to eat the Indigenous-inspired dishes at Owamni, he and his team hope to be role models.

SEAN SHERMAN: Some people get interested in not only being creative and cooking with these flavors and creating new recipes but also just being curious to be outdoors to create that connection with the world and the plants and to learn the stories, which we can pass down.

MECCA BOS: But as we get curious and creative, Hope offers constant reminders of the gravity of what we're up to today.

HOPE FLANAGAN: They have so much more to give than we have. In the stories, you'll hear that these are our elders. They were here before us. They don't need us. We need them.

MECCA BOS: Sean sets up an induction burner on top of a picnic table in the field. First, he gently heats some wild rice to puff it up. Then, he begins prepping the cedar buds, the bergamot, the cup plant, and other leaves we gathered.

SEAN SHERMAN: The first thing I'm just going to get those nettles softened up so you can handle them. [LAUGHS]

[FOOD FRYING]

So we just have some of the rice just puffed up, and then there's some cedar and some bergamot in that liquid just to give the liquid a little bit of flavor, and I added a little bit of pure maple. The Western diet in the United States has rarely taken into account like all this amazing stuff. So we're just showcasing that Indigenous peoples really hold such a wonderful key to living more sustainably, utilizing a lot more of this knowledge.

MECCA BOS: Finally, Sean delicately wraps the mixture in a cut plant leaf. He lays it on a wooden platter and garnishes it with purple chive flowers. I waste no time digging in. The tangy cedar, the peppery chives, and the crunch of the rice contrast with the sticky sweetness of the maple syrup. And so you've got floral vegetal Earth bitterness sweet. You got everything you want. Everything in one little bite.

SEAN SHERMAN: Basically on the walk that we just--

MECCA BOS: On the walk, yeah. It looks like a whole world in your mouth. It's so good. But deliciousness aside, Sean reminds us there is truly a whole world of knowledge in that little green wrapper.

SEAN SHERMAN: It's that connection to the plants that creates that connection to our ancestors directly because we can share that knowledge just like our ancestors did not that long ago. Because there's less than 100 years ago that so many of our ancestors still carried so much of that knowledge in them, and so much of that knowledge was being wiped away this past century. So it's really important that we do everything we can to steward this knowledge moving forward.

MECCA BOS: Working on this project, experiencing the great honor of spending time in the kitchens of people from the Latinx, Southeast Asian, African, and Indigenous communities in Minnesota, one common thread became clear-- sharing food is the ticket to better understanding others, but also ourselves. Through food, we can see each other more early and honor each other's humanity deliciously. For NPR News. I'm Mecca Boss.

SPEAKER: We'll make a story made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendments, Arts, and Cultural Heritage Fund. We've got more online. You can look for the North Star Journey link at mprnews.org.

[MUSIC PLAYING]