Tom Weso’s Survival Food Memoir: Menominee Places and Stories

media release: The Menominee author Tom Weso's wife and copy editor Denise Low, a writer herself, will speak about about his book, Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir(link is external)--its humor, good stories, and places important to this northern Wisconsin tribal nation.

This event will be hosted virtually through Zoom. The link to this program will be sent to you by email when you sign up. Zoom is a free video platform, and you can watch on a browser, or through the free mobile app for iOS(link is external) or Android(link is external). You can also call in with a phone to attend with audio only.

Part of the Teejop and Beyond: Celebrating Native Nations series in partnership with Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison. Visit madpl.org/teejopandbeyond for more info.

more on the book: This November, the Wisconsin Historical Society Press serves up an intimate and engaging Native food memoir by Gourmand Award–winning cook and author Thomas Pecore Weso, Survival Food: North Woods Stories by a Menominee Cook. Told with humor, heart, and a healthy appetite for storytelling, this follow-up to Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir, is a fusion of recipes, foodways, Indigenous history, and stories about life on and off the reservation.

Set primarily in Wisconsin’s Menominee Indian Reservation, Survival Food contains dozens of recipes—from turtle soup and gray squirrel stew to twice-baked cheesy potatoes. Weso’s coming-of-age tales—some serious, some laugh-out-loud funny—will take readers from Catholic schoolyards to Native foot trails to North Woods bowling alleys, while providing the author’s perspective on the cultural and political currents of the era.

In celebration of the release of the book, the Society Press will share Survival Food recipe videos on its YouTube page, @whspressbooks, and social media outlets, @whspress, throughout the month of November!

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Thomas Pecore Weso (1953–2023) was an author, educator, artist, and enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Nation of Wisconsin. His book Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2016, was reviewed widely and won a national Gourmand Award. He also wrote many articles and personal essays, a biography of Langston Hughes with coauthor Denise Low, and the children’s book Native American Stories for Kids (Rockridge Press, 2022), which was named a 2023 Kansas Notable Book. Weso was an alumnus of Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas, where he earned a master’s degree in Indigenous studies. He died in Sonoma County, California, on July 14, 2023.

EARLY PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“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, 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.”

—Jared Santek, Founding & 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: Native American Poetry from California