About three years ago, the Black Hills were seasoned, and this I mean from a cooking perspective. Confused? Let me clarify.

In 2006, the Black Hills were featured on the five-part PBS television series “Seasoned with Spirit,” which emphasized Native American culinary arts. However, the series was much more than a ‘cooking how-to’ guide. “Seasoned with Spirit” also provided a glance at the Native American culture, tradition and history scattered across the United States.

While in South Dakota, show host Loretta Barrett Oden, a renowned Native American chef and food historian, visited the buffalo range of Fred Dubray on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation for the filming of the third episode, “Return of the Buffalo.” There she assisted in the preparation of wasna (sun-dried bison with chokecherries), wojape (chokecherry soup) and grilled bison tenderloin. (For those of you not skilled in botany, a chokecherry is small fruit that grows on a small shrub or tree indigenous to North America).

Other locations depicted in the series include the Gulf Coast Region, Arizona with the Tohono O’odham Tribe, the banks of California’s Klamath River with the Yurok Tribe, and the Great Lakes Region with the Anishanabe, or Ojibwe people.

If you didn’t happen to watch the series while it was being aired, you haven’t missed out. Oden’s travels are available on DVD, so you can still catch a few lessons on cooking and culture.

If you want to learn more about “Seasoned with Spirit,” or related series, check it out here.