by Kekuli Cafe | Jan 27, 2021 | Blog
Sharon Bond is among a growing number of Indigenous entrepreneurs who are taking bannock and turning it into a business. She’s been in business since 2004, cooking, catering and creating, until her dream of opening a real restaurant, featuring “Bannock” was reality in Sept 2009. Bannock, is the most versatile bread on the planet. Every culture has a fried dough, that’s been made into a sweet or savory meal or snack. When Sharon was researching her business plan back in the early 1999-2000’s, there was not hide nor hair of a bannock restaurant. Although, go to a local pow-wow or gathering on the reserve, and there would be frybread everywhere! One of Sharon’s memories of bannock, date back to the times of going to a friends house after school, and there would be fried bannock on the stove and a pot of rice (best rezzy meal ever). Her mom, would make the best bread in the whole world, and many times, she would give away all her bread to the neighbors. Bannock has been around as long as there was a word for it, in nłeʔkepmxcin, the word for bread is seplíl. If there’s a word for it, it existed. Although since time immemorial, this type of bread, was made with Indigenous local ingredients from the earth, such as bitterroot, berries, sunflower root, wild potatoes and wild celery, and sweetened with saskatoon berries or huckleberries. It was thick sustenance that our people survived on as a source of nourishment. Thanks to the evolution of flour, oil, sweeteners, and cast iron pans, we’ve been creating delicious bannock, baked, fried and grilled....
