CPS American Indian Education Program

Chef Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef and founder of Owamni in Minneapolis, has sparked conversation for a powerful choice: he refuses to serve fry bread at his Native restaurant.

For many people, fry bread feels deeply connected to Native gatherings, powwows, family meals, and community traditions. But Sherman wants you to understand where it came from. Fry bread was not part of pre-colonial Native cuisine. It was born from survival, made with government ration ingredients like white flour, sugar, salt, and lard after Native communities were forced from their lands.

Sherman’s work asks you to look beyond the foods created by colonization and see the depth of Indigenous food traditions that existed long before it. At Owamni, his menu centers Native North American ingredients such as corn, beans, squash, wild rice, berries, fish, seeds, bison, and native plants.

His choice does not dismiss what fry bread means to Native families today. For many, it still carries memories of home, strength, and community. But Sherman’s mission is to bring attention back to older foodways rooted in land, season, culture, and Native knowledge.

His message is clear: Native cuisine is far older and richer than the foods forced onto Native people. Fry bread tells a story of survival. Sherman’s restaurant tells a story of return.

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