"Perennial Ceremony: Lessons and Gifts from a Dakota Garden," guides readers through the Dakota seasons by way of a mix of stories, recipes and wisdom, all centered around Teresa Peterson's garden.
Peterson shows the readers how the seasons help guide her garden, explaining, with the help of Native American wisdom, how each season contributes to the growing season. All the while, she demonstrates how the earth helps humans, animals and vegetation to heal, explaining how the land is a relative.
She explains how each of the seasons has a rhythm, from the fall being the time of the otter to the winter being the time when the snow lives and summer being the time of the potato.
Throughout each season is a story, poems and recipes, from succotash to salsa to fried fish. The book also includes simple soup recipes like Omnica Wahanpi soup, which contains dried beans, vegetables and ham. Peterson explains that soup is best shared with others.
Through her garden, Peterson explains, she can reflect on challenges, become in tune with spiritual experiences and commune with nature. Peterson's garden is in her native Dakota land, the land of her ancestors. It is overlooking the Mni Sota River, or Minnesota River near Belview, Minnesota.
Peterson is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and a citizen of the Upper Sioux Community. According to the University of Nebraska, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate are located in northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota as well as Minnesota and are part of the Sioux Nation. Her partner spent some of his growing up years in the Lake Traverse Reservation near Sisseton, South Dakota.
Peterson explains in her book there are more than 400 varieties of beans. Some she grows are tiger's eye, Hopi black turtle, painted pony and Christmas lima. Each year, she changes which ones she grows in her garden.
She grows and stores about 10 quarts of beans each year, always changing the varieties. She also likes to grow the other parts of the three sisters, corn and squash. Always aware that growing all three together creates a symbiosis, "sort of like mutual aid," the author states.
Beans create a lot of nitrogen and corn needs the nitrogen to grow, Peterson wrote. The squash leaves, on the other hand, help keep the soil moist and helps to control the weeds from forming under its leaves.
In addition to savory meals, Peterson shares her fruit recipes, including her pear muffins.
Combine dry ingredients. Mix egg, oil and milk together. Add to dry ingredients. Fold in diced pears. Scoop batter into greased muffin tins. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.
They swell and ascent, reaching toward infinite blue sky