Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness

Revised edition by Devon A. Mihesuah, 350 pages, 5½x8½, softcover. In this revised edition, award-winning author and citizen of Choctaw nation Devon A. Mihesuah expands upon her 2003 editorial “Decolonizing Our Diets by Recovering Our Ancestor’s Gardens.” Themes center around the topic of Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Mihesuah discusses Native diets prior to European contact, health issues that have come along with colonization and colonized diets, challenges in recovering traditional Native diets, and steps for recovering traditional pre-contact foods. A large collection of recipes (complete with gorgeous photographs) is included. Mihesuah states that teaching about Indigenous foods often “misses opportunities for more thorough discussions about social, political, religious, and economic aspects of tribal life and Indian-white relations,” and her book does not shy away from this discourse. Primarily aimed at a Native audience, but settlers who approach the book mindfully will be better prepared to engage with Indigenous Food Sovereignty and may be inspired to learn more about their own traditional foodways. -Jaye Dos Santos