-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email In the ninth episode of this Wisconsin-set season of " Top Chef ," aptly titled "The Good Land," host Kristen Kish tasked the cheftestants with a challenging prompt. This challenge was, bar none, my favorite of the season thus far. The idea of prioritizing — and exclusively using — only native and indigenous ingredients in every dish was a great way to honor the land in which the show is being filmed, as well as challenging the cheftestants beyond their usual repertoire; they were barred from using all dairy, sugar, wheat, chicken , beef and pork .
(Though of course, it should also be noted that what is native or indigenous to chefs in Wisconsin is markedly different from what is native or indigenous to me, in New Jersey, or someone cooking in Nebraska.) While dairy-free, sugar-free, or wheat-free cuisine can oftentimes be derided, this shows that it is: an incredibly viable way to cook, if not a preferable way to eat; totally doable; and able to result in delicious, well-made food, with or without substitutes. And in most cases you probably already have some of the ingredients needed to cook this way already on hand, such as corn, beans, squash, wild rice and much more.
Related Envisioning indigenous food sovereignty as "a whole ecosystem" “The Good Land” also shows that the food can exist on its own, truly sourced from the land and the waters, with nothing to muddy up its inherent locality, its purity, its richness. And for th.