SERVING TRADITION

NEARLY 400 YEARS AGO, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians shared a harvest feast that evolved into what we now call Thanksgiving. At the Potawatomi Casino’s annual

Native American Heritage Dinner, diners can experience authentic

Native American dishes while learning more about the culture of various tribes.

The menu features wild rice, rabbit, walleye, venison, whitefish, wild mushrooms, foraged berries and honey – all sourced from within Wisconsin. Even the wine served alongside the farm-to-table feast is local.

For Potawatomi executive chef

Mike Christensen, a member of the Lac du Flambeau band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, plotting out the seven-course feast has been a learning experience. One new revelation is that the French cooking term flambé shares its etymology with his ancestral home, named

Lac du Flambeau (Lake of the Torch) by the French trappers who fished there at night by torchlight.

Dream Dance Steak’s head chef Chase Anderson, who grew up on the Oneida Reservation, says that few people are familiar with indigenous cuisine. This event, now in its sixth year, is helping to change that.

(Nov. 7, 5:30 p.m.; $50-75 before gratuity; call 414-8477883 for reservations) food galore and live polka played nightly.