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Bannock — a contested bread

Bannock

Comparison

⚠ A WARNING ROW, BECAUSE THE EASY STORY IS WRONG IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. Bannock — fried, baked or cooked on a stick — is eaten by First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across Canada and is genuinely theirs now. ⚠ BUT WHEAT FLOUR, LARD AND BAKING POWDER ARE NOT INDIGENOUS. The bread as it now exists depends on rations and trade goods issued precisely as Indigenous food systems were being destroyed, and a number of Indigenous writers and cooks have said so plainly, some rejecting it for that reason and others holding it as survival food and therefore as heritage. ⚠ THERE IS ALSO AN OLDER LAYER: many communities made breads from ground corn, wild rice, camas, acorn or berry-and-fat cakes before contact, and those are not the same food. ⚠ THIS SYSTEM RECORDS THE DISAGREEMENT RATHER THAN SETTLING IT, and does not call bannock an ancient Indigenous bread.

Atlas — where and when

Communities and languages

  • First Nations community documented
  • Métis community documented
  • Inuit community documented

Languages: Plains Cree, Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin), Heritage Michif

What is recorded

  • Bannock as currently made depends on wheat flour, lard and leavening, none of which are Indigenous to North America, and which entered Indigenous diets through rations and trade goods during the period in which Indigenous food systems were being destroyed. It is eaten across First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities today. Indigenous commentators differ on whether it should be embraced as survival food and heritage or rejected as a colonial imposition. Pre-contact breads from corn, wild rice, camas, acorn or berry-and-fat preparations are recorded as distinct foods. The disagreement is recorded rather than resolved. disputed

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.