HYDERABAD: The Eskimo life always fascinated me: their igloos, their hunting methods, their dog sledges and the heaps of snow that surrounded them. All those pictures in my geography book flash in my mind whenever I think of the North Pole. I travelled thousands of miles, crossing oceans, mountains and continents to be able to meet them. I undertook this journey to see for myself, what they are made of. What is it that drives them in this tough journey? For me, the inhabitants of the Arctic represent the spirit, resolve and steely doggedness for survival, be it the natives or the plants in the Arctic.
In Churchill (Subarctic region, closer to the North Pole in Canada), I got to taste some traditional food at a Métis home. While Gerald, a renowned Musher of Manitoba took us on a dog carting expedition with his expert sledge dogs, on our return, his wife Jenafor had a bannock ready for us with wild blueberries. Bannock is a traditional food for the Métis.
The Métis are descendants of the intermarriages that occurred between Native Canadian women and European men who came from France, Scotland, Ireland and England to work in the early European fur trading companies like Hudson’s Bay and Northwest Fur Companies.
There was a tinge of sadness in Gerald’s voice: “Our food until the mid- 1950’s which is about the time our world started to change, was simple and nutritious. Like us, the food was a mixture of old and new; old world being our ‘kokomos’ – First Nations women of this land and the new world is the European grandfathers who came from France, Scotland, Ireland and England.”
Gerald reminisced, “My earliest memories are of sitting at the kitchen table watching my mother and aunts prepare feasts for family gatherings. Their laughter, their chattering voices and the wonderful smell of Li Bullet soup simmering on the big wood stove heralded that all was well in my world. The soup was a staple in every Metis home.
Instead of ‘coffee breaks’ dad had ‘soup breaks’, and for us kids who walked a couple of miles to school, it was the first thing we did when we got home, right before we ran out to our chores. Mom always had a big black cast iron pot at the back of the cook stove, and every morning all the leftovers from the day before would be dumped into the pot along with the leftover gravy. The contents of the soup varied from day to day; sometimes partridge and oatmeal, rabbit and noodles or even all of them together. In the late fall when the snow and cold came mother would stockpile soups and broths to be used for unexpected company or for the times when there was nothing for the pot.
As soon as winter came mom would begin making pots of soup. The soups were made from just about everything: wild meats, fish and birds, vegetables, beans, barley and rice. When the soups were ready, she would cool them down and pour them into greased containers – greasing the containers made it easier for the soup to come out later. Then she would put the soup out to freeze. When it was frozen, she would wrap it in cheesecloth and put it into sugar and flour bags then hang it on the hooks in the ice house.”
Gerald continued: “When many of our people still lived off the land, bannock provided the essential energy our bodies needed, especially during times of hunting and gathering or during the months when the food supply was limited. The flour and lard (animal fat) originally used to make bannock are very high in energy, and loaded with calories. Now that we tend to live a less active lifestyle, our bodies don’t require such high-calorie foods; hence we avoid using lard and also eat smaller portions.”
Often enjoyed in groups, berry picking during summers is quite an activity. Jenafor uses the wild berries picked up during the season in cooking, preserving etc. As nothing grows in the dry, cold and windy Tundra, food has to be imported and is very expensive. People work very hard to survive in adverse climatic conditions (with a –50 C temperature lasting for more than three months).
The aroma of Jenafor’s home-baked bread wafted across as she took out to air the fresh loaves from the oven. Believing totally in DIY she even mills the wheat herself and freshness can’t get any better! Responding to my enthusiasm, she shared a simple bannock recipe that can be made in the oven, though it is traditionally baked on a stick over a charcoal or open fire.
Ingredients: 11/2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp white sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp powdered milk, 1 tbsp oil or melted shortening, ¾ cup milk. Instructions: Mix all ingredients together and drop, by spoonfuls, on a greased baking sheet. (Alternatively, with a bit more flour, the dough can be patted into a circle and placed in a greased cast iron frying pan and baked until golden brown. Bake at 350F. The bannock with a modern twist tasted delicious alongside the wild berry preserve. Sitting in the wooden cabin, I imagined an igloo around me. (The author is a documentary filmmaker and travel writer;
she blogs at vijayaprataptravelandbeyond.com)