How Bannock Bread Is Preserving Indigenous Culture in British Columbia

[Celerity]

The staple bread helps native chefs move one step closer to food sovereignty.

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/what-is-bannock-bread



In British Columbia, Indigenous knowledge is passed over baskets of warm bannock. The bread, also known as the “Aboriginal staff of life,” is a connection to the past, a staple among nations that have existed long ago. But it continues to have a place at the table, Indigenous or otherwise, as the kind of comfort food that has no boundaries.

Bannock can be many things. The pillowy dough—a simple concoction of flour, water, baking powder, and salt—is either baked, fried, or cooked over an open fire. Depending on how you prepare it, the bread can sit crumbly and scone-like alongside a selection of jams, serve as a bun on a wild salmon burger, or, with a little bit of oil, take the form of a donut.

Inez Cook, founder of Vancouver’s only Indigenous-owned restaurant Salmon n’ Bannock, remembers making bannock at summer camp—a place where many British Columbians first encounter the bread.

“Sometimes I swear my summer camp bannock was cheated, and it was probably Bisquick,” Cook jokes. “But I have fond memories of making it on the fire and putting corn syrup on it.” Though Cook knew it was a native bread, it was not something she ate at home.

snip