In this engaging culinary demonstration at LA Times’ Festival of Books, Chef Pyet—a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation—shares deeply personal recipes from her cookbook, “Rooted in Fire.” Blending her Indigenous and Mexican American heritage, she addresses the lack of Native American representation in the modern culinary world and advocates for food sovereignty. She challenges the audience to consider whether their pantries authentically reflect their cultural identities.
Throughout the demonstration, Pyet meticulously crafts two traditional dishes: bison meatballs glazed in a Wojapi-inspired barbecue sauce, and a vibrant Three Sisters salad. She explains that Wojapi is a traditional berry sauce, which she elevates into a Kansas City-style barbecue sauce using maple, mixed berries, apple cider vinegar, and smoked paprika. Pyet underscores the cultural importance of the ingredients, recounting how Indigenous communities originally learned to tap maple trees by observing the behavior of squirrels.
When preparing the bison meatballs, Pyet reflects on her profound experience of harvesting and butchering a bison. She honors the animal’s majestic, celestial nature and explains how Indigenous traditions historically utilized the entirety of the bison out of respect. To stay true to traditional flavor profiles, she prefers indigenous seasonings like juniper berries and sunflower seed oil over introduced ingredients like black pepper and olive oil.
The presentation concludes with the preparation of a Three Sisters salad, a dish composed of corn, beans, and squash. Pyet explains the symbiotic agricultural relationship of these three plants, detailing how they thrive when grown together. She emphasizes the profound spiritual lesson behind this planting method: an enduring cycle of reciprocity that honors humanity, Mother Earth, and local wildlife. By sharing these ancestral techniques and ingredients, Chef Pyet not only provides a lesson in cooking but also delivers a powerful educational experience
