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      Survival Food: North Woods Stories by a Menominee Cook

      $24.95
      An intimate and engaging Native food memoir. These stories from the author’s teen and tween years—some serious, some laugh-out-loud funny—will take readers from Catholic schoolyards to Native foot trails to bowling alleys. An intimate and engaging Native food memoir.
      Availability: In stock
      SKU: 9781976600210
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      Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

      Summary

      In these coming-of-age tales set on the Menominee Indian Reservation of the 1980s and 1990s, Thomas Pecore Weso explores the interrelated nature of meals and memories. As he puts it, “I cannot separate foods from the moments in my life when I first tasted them.” Weso’s stories recall the foods that influenced his youth in northern Wisconsin: subsistence meals from hunted, fished, and gathered sources; the culinary traditions of the German, Polish, and Swedish settler descendants in the area; and the commodity foods distributed by the government—like canned pork, dried beans, and powdered eggs—that made up the bulk of his family’s pantry. His mom called this “survival food.”

      These stories from the author’s teen and tween years— some serious, some laugh-out-loud funny—will take readers from Catholic schoolyards to Native foot trails to North Woods bowling alleys, while providing Weso’s perspective on the political currents of the era. The book also contains dozens of recipes, from turtle soup and gray squirrel stew to twice-baked cheesy potatoes. This follow-up to Weso’s Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir is a hybrid of modern foodways, Indigenous history, and creative nonfiction from a singular storyteller.

      Author

      THOMAS PECORE WESO is an enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Nation of Wisconsin. He is the author of Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), which won a national Gourmand Award, and the children’s book Native American Stories for Kids. Weso is an alumnus of Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas, where he earned a master’s degree in Indigenous studies. He is a born-and-bred Cheesehead and a happy family chef. He currently resides in Sonoma County, California.

      Reviews

      “This book is not only about survival food, but about the singular beauty, creativity, and fortitude that comes out of that survival.”
      —Chef Sean Sherman, author of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen

      “Nothing brings people together like good food and good stories. There’s an abundance of both in Thomas Pecore Weso’s latest memoir. As Weso attests, food can bring back happy, loving memories of times that were far from happy. Even a tray of funeral sandwiches brings a kind of comfort. This is a wonderful, honest portrait of northeastern Wisconsin, enlightening even to those of us who call this area home.” 
      —Jared Santek, Founder & Artistic Director, Write On Door County

      “Survival Food provides ample nourishment for the mind and body. . . . The stories, told with humor and affection, are complemented by recipes ranging from mouth-watering instructions for cooking wild asparagus to ever-so-interesting advice for preparing bear stew.”
      —Lucille Lang Day, author of Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place and coeditor of Red Indian Road West

      “Rich with captivating tales that include driving a convertible on logging roads, agreeing on terms before throwing eggs at passing cars, and his grandmother’s brief stay in a jailhouse she’d later purchase, Weso’s entries offer readers catharsis—demonstrating how to laugh, boast, debate, eat, mourn, and heal.” 
      —Ryan Winn, College of Menominee Nation, Tribal College Journal

      Awards

      • Silver winner of the 2023 Midwest Book Award for Cookbooks/Crafts/Hobbies
      • Finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Multicultural Adult Nonfiction
      • Library of Congress Centers for the Book Great Read title from the state of Wisconsin

      Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

      Summary

      In these coming-of-age tales set on the Menominee Indian Reservation of the 1980s and 1990s, Thomas Pecore Weso explores the interrelated nature of meals and memories. As he puts it, “I cannot separate foods from the moments in my life when I first tasted them.” Weso’s stories recall the foods that influenced his youth in northern Wisconsin: subsistence meals from hunted, fished, and gathered sources; the culinary traditions of the German, Polish, and Swedish settler descendants in the area; and the commodity foods distributed by the government—like canned pork, dried beans, and powdered eggs—that made up the bulk of his family’s pantry. His mom called this “survival food.”

      These stories from the author’s teen and tween years— some serious, some laugh-out-loud funny—will take readers from Catholic schoolyards to Native foot trails to North Woods bowling alleys, while providing Weso’s perspective on the political currents of the era. The book also contains dozens of recipes, from turtle soup and gray squirrel stew to twice-baked cheesy potatoes. This follow-up to Weso’s Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir is a hybrid of modern foodways, Indigenous history, and creative nonfiction from a singular storyteller.

      Author

      THOMAS PECORE WESO is an enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Nation of Wisconsin. He is the author of Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), which won a national Gourmand Award, and the children’s book Native American Stories for Kids. Weso is an alumnus of Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas, where he earned a master’s degree in Indigenous studies. He is a born-and-bred Cheesehead and a happy family chef. He currently resides in Sonoma County, California.

      Reviews

      “This book is not only about survival food, but about the singular beauty, creativity, and fortitude that comes out of that survival.”
      —Chef Sean Sherman, author of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen

      “Nothing brings people together like good food and good stories. There’s an abundance of both in Thomas Pecore Weso’s latest memoir. As Weso attests, food can bring back happy, loving memories of times that were far from happy. Even a tray of funeral sandwiches brings a kind of comfort. This is a wonderful, honest portrait of northeastern Wisconsin, enlightening even to those of us who call this area home.” 
      —Jared Santek, Founder & Artistic Director, Write On Door County

      “Survival Food provides ample nourishment for the mind and body. . . . The stories, told with humor and affection, are complemented by recipes ranging from mouth-watering instructions for cooking wild asparagus to ever-so-interesting advice for preparing bear stew.”
      —Lucille Lang Day, author of Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place and coeditor of Red Indian Road West

      “Rich with captivating tales that include driving a convertible on logging roads, agreeing on terms before throwing eggs at passing cars, and his grandmother’s brief stay in a jailhouse she’d later purchase, Weso’s entries offer readers catharsis—demonstrating how to laugh, boast, debate, eat, mourn, and heal.” 
      —Ryan Winn, College of Menominee Nation, Tribal College Journal

      Awards

      • Silver winner of the 2023 Midwest Book Award for Cookbooks/Crafts/Hobbies
      • Finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Multicultural Adult Nonfiction
      • Library of Congress Centers for the Book Great Read title from the state of Wisconsin
      Products specifications
      Details
      PublisherWisconsin Historical Society Press
      ISBN Number

      978-1-9766-0021-0

      Publication Year2023
      Page Count312
      IllustrationsNA
      Format/BindingPaperback
      Trim Size5.5 x 8.5 inches

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      Guest 11/13/2023 2:11 PM
      Poignant and clear-eyed look at growing up Menominee
      I experience of pang of wounded conscience reading Weso’s preface listing foods he grew up eating in the generation of change when food preparation sank to the bottom of the list of family activities. Allowing strangers to create shelf-stable quick-prep eat-and-run food marched us another step away from our identities. In twenty-one stories about life growing up Menominee, Weso attempts to redirect us toward our own family memories as well as encouraging us to forge new ones and pass them on to the next generation.

      Weso lived mostly with his grandparents. “Grandma’s meals always followed the basic Menominee food pyramid….sweet, salt, meat and water.” Meal times were family times, stories and making plans, sharing news. The recipes that follow each story are full of pithy comments, such as the one in Venison Soup: “This is a relatively simple dish to make, after preparing the corn, and finding a deer, dispatching it, and dressing it.” Some of the recipes I’m excited to try, such as Winter Tamale Pie, many ingredients of which can be substituted with canned goods. “These also work during pandemic quarantines when trips to the grocery store are limited.” Other recipes…not so much. I do believe and accept that grasshoppers have lots of protein, but I’m not quite so anxious to make grasshopper tacos. Weso ate a grasshopper taco once in his “search for authenticity” as a college student in Madison.

      Every story is an opportunity to share a life lesson or comment such as why Grandma encouraged them to drink coffee and tea, not alcohol. The stories are generous memories of tick bites, porcupine rescues, bear hunting, working on a road crew, felling trees, going to college, learning family lore such as the history behind Grandma and Grandpa’s house. All the way to the passing of Weso’s mother, Weso’s memories weave a loving and poignant, sometimes funny, and always thought-provoking tale of the importance of family and memory and how food is often the main ingredient of home.
      Was this review helpful? Yes No (2/0)
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      Products specifications
      Details
      PublisherWisconsin Historical Society Press
      ISBN Number

      978-1-9766-0021-0

      Publication Year2023
      Page Count312
      IllustrationsNA
      Format/BindingPaperback
      Trim Size5.5 x 8.5 inches
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