Good Seeds

 Good Seeds: A Menominee Indian Food Memoir by Thomas Pecore Weso, 124 pages.

Thomas Pecore Weso is a Native anthropologist and artist, and this memoir centers on his childhood with his grandparents and extended family on the Menominee reservation in the 60s, all through the lens of what they ate. This was, through his lens, a period of transformation on the reservation, as modernization changed many traditional ways of life even as other aspects were still practiced by tribal elders.

I was very interested in this book, and especially with what Weso's training as an anthropologist would bring to it. Unfortunately, this wasn't an element the memoir seemed to be very interested in dealing with. It was, also unfortunately, not very well written. The whole thing is pretty disjointed and lacks any real cohesiveness. The end result being that despite being only slightly over 100 pages the book dragged. It also didn't help that most of the recipes at the end of every chapter weren't very interesting. They were mostly for very basic versions of very basic dishes, such as pan-fried fish, oatmeal, and baked beans. Overall, I'm sadly disappointed in this memoir.