(chopping) - Well, my journey on food first started when I was young with my father.

I was probably about between maybe seven and eight.

On the PBS station there used to be a couple cooking shows.

One was "Martin Yan Can Cook," an Asian chef, Very funny, very personable.

So I used to love to watch that show with my dad and my dad would even recreate some of his dishes.

So that kind of really inspired me because unfortunately, my dad passed away when I was young.

So I really held onto those shows, those memories.

And that's really driven me.

After high school, I didn't really know what direction I wanted to go, so I was able to work in a few restaurants around town here.

And a couple of the chefs really inspired me to pursue my education with cooking.

They taught me how to scratch cook.

They taught me the importance of not wasting food.

Every penny counts.

So that was really crucial to my development of becoming where I'm at today.

That did inspire me to further my passion into cooking by attending culinary school at the Grand Rapids Community College.

- [Reporter] With childhood inspiration developed from PBS cooking shows and formal educational training added to his knowledge base, Sam's cooking foundation was taking shape, but there was still a piece missing.

- During my culinary program, I was able to work with one of the chefs there, Angus Campbell.

He is a European master chef, and I told Chef Angus that I was a Native American.

He said, oh man, I'd love to learn some food.

Tell me all about it.

And I was super embarrassed because I didn't know anything.

But that's always stuck with me, that I always wanted to pursue that.

So I worked a lot in classic French kitchens, classic French cuisine, learned all that, the classic brigade system, all the mother sauces.

But I never really felt like I fit in in any of those kitchens.

I always just felt like this wasn't for me, I didn't belong, and that sunk in.

After a few years of my culinary career, I was able to meet the Sioux chef, Sean Sherman.

And that's when really the indigenous foods really started to go off for me.

He came to the tribe, did one of his book signings, and that really lit the fire in me because at that moment, I felt I knew where I belonged because at that time I was really starting to get back to my culture for about three or four years.

And I always thought for us truly to be a sovereign nation, we have our language, we have our culture, but no one ever talks about food.

So I was like, that's my calling.

That's how I can help spread the knowledge of food sovereignty, native American foods that's always been here.

So that's where my fire kind of first started.

It really got exciting for me when I was able to help organize the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Farmers Market.

I was able to work with some of the farmers that had these traditional seeds, traditional products, and that I was able to incorporate them into tasting samples at the farmer's market.

That really helped me be creative, helped reignite the fire within me.

By going in full speed to the food sovereignty movement, I was able to learn from other Native American chefs the importance of acquiring these foods.

- [Reporter] Chef Sam is enthusiastic to use the same ingredients his ancestors showcased and reintroduce those flavor profiles to waiting pallets.

- The squash, the beans, and the corn.

And they all complete a circle for one another.

The beans, when they are done for the year, those nutrients help the corn come back next year and vice versa.

Each of those are important for the balance of those.

So it's of course the three sisters, but then you have all the wild game that's available, the elk, the venison, and the fish that's always been here.

Some of the game birds.

There's a whole bunch of stuff out there.

Then when you go into the springtime, the forest comes back alive with all the fresh greens and the spring mushrooms and all the abundance of what Mother Earth brings to us.

What I've really found intriguing is some of the spices.

Us indigenous people were creative people.

And I know my ancestors were creative people too.

And no one likes to eat bland food.

We all think of adding stuff to it.

So around here there's sumac, there's cedar, using pine needles, creating different kinds of smokes and curing methods with utilizing maple sugar, the salt.

It's really remarkable if you start delving into all the stuff that's still here and that's always been here, that we can reawaken to the public with.

And some of these flavors that are not out here are pretty unique.

And when I cook, I like to keep my recipes simple so I can highlight those ingredients so everybody can have that distinct flavor.

- [Reporter] Food and culture often walk hand in hand, creating cultural and family traditions.

However, there were times when traditional foods were taken away from the Native American population.

- I guess with the inflammation of the boarding school system, not only did it displace the children from their families, really the whole concept was to civilize the Native Americans.

But while in the course of doing that they really really affected the health of the Native Americans too, because they took 'em away from their traditional foods, a lot of the foods they had to really work hard for and exert that energy to keep 'em healthy, to sustain those foods.

But when they were taken to the boarding school, they weren't given very good foods.

They were having oatmeal, porridge, heavy carbs, heavy sugar laced foods, and nothing that really had any heart to it.

They would get disciplined for going out to the orchard and picking an apple on their own.

They weren't allowed to do that.

So it really inflicted a culinary trauma on the Native American people who attended the boarding schools because there's no passion in that food, and it's just another way to bring people down was having them eat that kind of food.

And then that also created all the health disparities of diabetes, overweight.

Well, for me, that was another passion for me to learn how to cook is because we did get our monthly supplies of our commodity foods.

And some of that foods wasn't very healthy either.

So that helped me be creative.

Oh, I have tuna fish in a can, so I can doctor that up a little bit.

Or the beef in the can, the pork in the can, how I doctor that up?

So that kind of helped me be creative too and learn how to utilize some of those foods that weren't very tasty.

- [Reporter] Chef Sam is looking forward to introducing more folks to indigenous flavors and experiences.

- Well, I'm hoping that they take away something that they will remember and then maybe take it back home and cook it with their families and have that same story that I gave them passed on too.

Because that's what it's about.

It's about spreading that knowledge, 'cause if we don't spread that knowledge, it's useless.

And that's my mentality, we gotta spread it.

People coming in, watching me cook and explaining those dishes, it really, really humbled me and showed me that people do take an interest in Native American food, and not a lot of people do know about it.

And I was really impressed with the students coming in and, hey, I'll try everything, or, hey, tell me a little bit about this.

And everybody was so eager to listen and I'm so willing to share.

So it was a perfect combo right there.

And I was just so impressed with everybody coming in and taking part in this and really, truly honoring these foods and tr honoring the people who were here before me and my ancestors.