Other than the five dead deer the Wampanoags donated for the first Thanksgiving feast, chances are that the average American can’t name much—if anything—in the way of Native American cuisine. We’re fluent in food from Szechuan Chinese to Mexican, Middle Eastern, Italian, and Thai, but closest to home, most of us draw a blank. Out of America’s 600,000+ restaurants, a mere handful are Native American. Why is indigenous cooking so invisible?

One reason, according to the latest generation of Native American chefs, is that indigenous cuisine is so diverse that it’s difficult to define. There’s no typical Native-American-associated dish, in the simplistic sense that we pair spaghetti with Italy, tamales with Mexico, and over-boiled beef with the Brits. Instead, each