Episode 10: Native ingredients

The Corner Table: Top Chef Wisconsin

Amber Bristow is a fifth generation cranberry grower, but even she had never seen cranberry soup before the cranberry challenge on "Top Chef." "I was blown away by their creativity," said Bristow, who grows cranberries on her family's farm in Warrens, Wisconsin.

Following Amber on the podcast this week is Elena Terry, a Ho-Chunk chef, educator and nonprofit leader whose organization, Wild Bearies, strives to preserve ancestral foods. Chef Elena was one of the guest judges for the indigenous foods challenge, and she and the chef at Owamni, Sean Sherman, prepared a meal for the cheftestants. Elena has complicated feelings about the idea of Native restaurants but was inspired and encouraged by how the chefs approached indigenous ingredients.

There are no major spoilers on this week's episode. We do take some side tangents into why there are no chickens allowed on Amber's cranberry farm, how one chef used the milkweed Elena harvested and how Elena's nieces responded when they saw her on TV.