Twin Cities chef and Indigenous foods advocate Sean Sherman has been named to Time Magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Sherman runs the acclaimed Minneapolis restaurant Owamni, which focuses on Native foodways and won a national James Beard award for best new restaurant in 2022. The chef, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe, is also the author of several cookbooks including “The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen.”
“I am thrilled to accept this honor on behalf of my ancestors, who lived in balance with the natural world,” Sherman said in a news release. “The foodways that sustained our Indigenous ancestors have the potential to rebalance and heal our bodies, weave connections within our communities, and bring harmony to our relationship with the planet.”
Sherman’s nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, or NATIFS, also operates the Indigenous Food Lab, a training kitchen at Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis.
Other honorees on this year’s Time Magazine list include King Charles, Beyoncé, the founders of Covid-19 vaccine producers BioNTech SE, environmental justice researcher Catherine Coleman Flowers and actor Jennifer Coolidge.
