About half a dozen guests watch intently as Jessica Raine performs her bannock.
“It’s really simple, only three ingredients,” the Alexander First Nation member said of the recipe.
With practiced ease, Laine puts flour, salt, and baking soda into a mixing bowl. She hardly needs a measuring cup. Mixing a little water in her hands and cutting it later, she takes a square of white dough from the tray and slides it into the wok of hot oil with her bare hands. After just 10 minutes, the dough will become crispy and golden brown, making it a ready-to-eat bannock. Guests said it was the best they had ever eaten.
Lane said you can put whatever you like on or inside the bannock, including garlic, raisins, jam and butter. Her children are stuffing their things with abalone.
“We call it ‘Alexander Steak’!” she joked.
Lane (states “I reserve my inherent rights as a Red Indian and all rights under the Treaty, St. James’s Palace, April 10, 1710, I remain.”) was the guest chef for the St. Albert Food Bank’s Cultural Kitchen event, said food bank director Susan Creshi, who was the guest chef at the St. Albert Food Bank’s Cultural Kitchen event. He said he is an expert on indigenous peoples.
Lane told guests that bannock is a staple of Indigenous culture and is featured at many meals and community gatherings.
“This is very important and part of our heritage.”
food as culture
Tabitha Robin, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, said traditional foods are an important part of Canada’s Indigenous culture. frontier of communication.
“Through the acts of hunting, gathering, fishing, and foraging, Indigenous peoples have the opportunity not only to practice their culture but also to evoke their spirit.”
Indigenous peoples have long been prohibited from practicing these practices or preparing the traditional meals associated with them, Lane noted. Now, she’s free to pull ingredients off the shelf and make bannock with her daughter, Desiree Cardinal.
“In 2024, we don’t have to be ashamed of who we are,” Lane said.
Lane said she learned how to make several types of bannock, pemmican and other traditional dishes from her nokum (grandmother), Beatrice Sr., who made bannock every day for her seven children. Herself usually she makes two to three batches a week.
“It won’t last long at all!”
Scott Iserhoff, owner of Edmonton’s Indigenous food and education company Pei-Pay-Chey-Ow (pronounced “pee-pee-su-choo”), learned Indigenous cooking from his grandparents, who often cooked them over fire. He said he was served hot cooked bannock. .
“It was right there.” [saying]“Hey, I love you,” he said.
Isselhoff said the APTN show inspired him to delve deeper into indigenous cuisine. cooking with wolfmanIn , chef David Wolfman championed the benefits and importance of traditional indigenous ingredients. Now, he combines indigenous knowledge with modern cooking techniques to create dishes such as bison tartare with pickled wild apples.
Shane Chartrand of Edmonton’s Nehiyau Cuisine presents Indigenous cuisine on shows such as: chopped canada and iron chef canada. Although he grew up eating traditional Indigenous food, he wasn’t able to embrace his Indigenous background until he saw his chef Susure Lee’s wild fusion of French and Chinese cuisine. he said.
“I thought, ‘This is indigenous food.’ This person is cooking French-style dishes with ancient Chinese ingredients. Why isn’t that what I’m doing?”
Chartrand said he spent years visiting First Nations communities across Canada to learn how to introduce traditional ingredients such as moose, smoked salmon and wild celery. Through his travels, he gained a new appreciation for the strength of indigenous culture.
“Authentic Indigenous cuisine was already thriving,” he said.
A story in every bite
Edmonton chef Brad Lazarenko (whose mother grew up in St. Albert) serves Métis-inspired dishes such as the Three Sisters salad through his Culina Family of Restaurants.
“Modern Indigenous cuisine…is just using local ingredients,” he said, focusing on what is used rather than how it is used.
That’s not to say there aren’t some iconic dishes. For example, pemmican is a mixture of fat, dried meat, and berries that hunters use as a long-lasting travel food. Lazarenko pointed out that traditional pemmican doesn’t contain a lot of salt or spice, so modern diners may find it a little bland.
Bannock is often associated with First Nations and Métis peoples, but its colonial roots make it controversial to some, writes John Robert Colombo. canadian encyclopedia. Brought to North America by Scottish fur traders, bannock became a staple for indigenous peoples as they were moved to reserves and forced to subsist on government-supplied flour, lard, and eggs. For that reason, some Indigenous chefs avoid bannock, but Isselhoff said he considers bannock to be indigenous by adoption.
“I love Bannock. It’s part of our history and a learning opportunity,” Iserhoff said.
“This is what kept us alive during those difficult times.”
Indigenous cuisine is about place, people and stories, Chartrand says. It comes from knowing the region’s traditions, which ingredients are preferred (and why), and combining them with modern culinary skills to create dishes.
Chartrand said, for example, that Indigenous food around Edmonton is all about bison, because bison was a major food source in the region. Chefs in BC may prefer air-dried salmon, while chefs in other regions may use cattail, whale or beaver.
Chartrand and Iserhoff said these local ingredients need to be backed by history and context. For example, as Isselhoff serves bison tartare with pickled wild apples, he explains how bison were hunted to near extinction in North America and how foraging is central to indigenous life. I will tell you. To add bone marrow to aioli, he tells stories of his grandparents roasting elk bones and splitting them with an ax to spread the marrow on bannock.
Lane talks about the wild berries she harvests each year for use in jam, and how when she and her grandmother were picking saskatoons, their daughter poked her head out of the bushes and her face and fingers were covered in juice. Talk about being blue.
“I think she ate a little more than she chose!” Lane said with a laugh.
I’ll cook tomorrow
Ms Lane said it was important to her to share her knowledge of indigenous cuisine with others.
“Some of our traditions are being lost,” she said, but sharing them shows that these traditions are still alive.
Isselhoff said it was important to promote Indigenous cuisine in order to develop it as a field and inspire the next generation of chefs.
“We are rediscovering food.”
Iserhoff said people who want to learn about Indigenous cuisine should start by talking to Indigenous chefs and eating at Indigenous-owned restaurants. Bannock is an easy starter dish to try.
Chartrand said food is one way to learn more about Indigenous culture.
“When you can eat our food, learn about our people, and get to know our people, everything is connected.”
