Miywasin Moment: Kookum’s Kitchen: Bannock on a Stick

By JoLynn Parenteau on September 22, 2021.

SUBMITTED Photo Randy FeerE Columnist JoLynn Parenteau cooks 'bannock on a stick' at the Saratoga Park Métis Settlement Plaque Designation event Thursday evening.

Where do our memories live? You might say in our minds, and in our hearts. But it is also our senses that hold so much memory. We can recall the touch of a loved one, long after the warmth of a hand has faded. You could recognize the sound of someone special’s voice anywhere, years after you’d last heard it. The scent of spruce and cinnamon in wintertime might envelope you in Christmastimes of old. The sight of a familiar setting will transport you through time to the moment you first visited.

Then there is taste. The taste of a grandmother’s recipes lifted from the page to pan to palette can wrap us in memories that bring our ancestors’ ways back to life.

Thursday evening, a spectacle for the senses greeted a crowd gathered together down Saratoga Park Trail for a special event co-hosted by the Esplanade, the City of Medicine Hat, and Miywasin Friendship Centre. The wind stilled and the birds quieted as Mayor Clugston read aloud the inscription on a plaque unveiled there, honouring the MÃ©tis community that endured in that place for 80 years, from 1930 to 2010. Then arose the music of a fiddle, a keyboard and a guitar. Musicians played the Red River Jig under the boughs of an old tree wrapped in white lights. Onlookers watched young women perform the jig steps and a broom dance. Dust kicked up under their moccasins as they sang “heel, toe, 1, 2, 3.” Whistles of applause cheered their merry steps. A young girl called out for guests to follow her along on a walking tour of the place where the last homestead stood, where a garden once grew, where the ponies were stabled.

Floating on the air all around those gathered was the warm scent of a favourite kookum’s recipe: bannock on a stick.

Kookum means ‘grandma’ in Cree. The origin of most MÃ©tis families grew from the unions of settler European men and Indigenous women. Bannock, an unleavened bread, cooked over the fire has been a favourite of Indigenous and early pioneer families for generations. Modern bannock is most often oven-baked, pan- or deep-fried, and can be found in many sweet and savory recipes today.

Tonight, the guests are enjoying bannock in its simplest, most crowd-pleasing form: wrapped around a skewer, cooked over an open flame, and slathered in butter and strawberry jam.

“I remember eating this here at the Aaker’s house”, says a guest, remembering the last house that stood in the clearing until 2010, belonging to Henry Aaker. Three generations of his family are onsite that evening, sharing memories, laughter and bannock.

Try following this recipe for Bannock on a Stick from Miywasin Friendship Centre for your next fireside gathering. This recipe will serve 20 guests or more, and can be halved or doubled as needed.

Ingredients:

– 8 cups of flour

– 1 tablespoon of sugar

– 8 tablespoons of baking powder

– 1 tablespoon of salt

– Â½ brick of butter, softened

– 6-8 cups of water

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients, reserving some flour. Add half a brick of butter. Blend into flour mixture until well blended like pastry flour. Make a hole in the center. Add 6-8 cups of water. Mix in reserved flour until you get a nice dough that is not too sticky. Let sit for 1-2 hours “to let the baking powder do its thing,” instructs Miywasin’s Marina Greier.

Wrap tinfoil around a campfire skewer for the dough to cling to. Roll dough into long strands the width of your thumb. Coil the dough around the tinfoil, pinching together at the top and bottom to secure. Roast over an open fire until golden brown. Serve warm with butter and jam. Also try wrapped around a smokie for a bannock-dog!

Marci – ‘thank you’, in the MÃ©tis Michif language – to Marina for sharing this recipe. May all who enjoy it, savour making a new memory.