iN VIDEO: Making Kekuli Cafe's authentic and popular bannock
A steady stream of customers filter into Kekuli Café in Kamloops on a grey, chilly morning for hot drinks and warm, fresh bannock.
The small restaurant smells of cinnamon and fried bread when iNFOnews.ca stopped by recently to see how restaurant owner Elijah Mack-Stirling makes his famous bannock, which he makes fresh everyday.
“I always say you’ll never find the same two pieces of bannock in your life,” he said. “Every person making bannock adds their own unique touch to it, it’s authentic.”
Mack-Stirling owns a Kekuli Café both in Kamloops and Merritt, while the other two in the growing franchise are located in the Okanagan. Between them all, one million pieces of bannock have been served over the years.
While bannock was once a survival food for Indigenous people, today Mack-Stirling gets creative with fun flavours like Cherry Bomb and Saskatoon Berry.
“Bannock was a staple and survival food for Indigenous people because it was very rich, very heavy and it could last a long time,” he said. “We had to survive off the land, so you take this wheat or grain, berries and oats, and mix it together with fat from the harvested animals and cook it over the fryer.
“Now we have adapted and use all purpose flour, and now we have 15 different flavours. We’re having a lot of fun experimenting."
The dry ingredients — flour, salt, sugar and baking powder — are premixed to help the team get a head start in the early mornings.
Both baked and fried bannock are made at Kekuli Café, and today Mack-Stirling is making the baked kind. He puts dry ingredients in a bowl, adds a dash of yeast, and pours warm water into the mix, feeling out the exact right moisture content.
“I say if it’s starting to look like cookie dough, you’ve done something wrong,” he said. “If it’s starting to look like pancake mix you’ve done something wrong. You have to find a perfect middle spot."
He then uses an ice cream scoop to dish out consistent sized balls of dough, before gingerly picking up them up, rounding them out and dropping them onto an oiled baking sheet.
“You have to be gentle with this part, if you use a claw-like hand to pick them up it damages their shape,” he said.
READ MORE: iN VIDEO: How a Kamloops bakery makes its popular sourdough bread
The dough balls are turned over to get a thin oiled sheen on them and then put in the oven to bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 350 Celsius.
The bannock comes out warm, puffy and ready for flavoured toppings.
All the menu items at Kekuli are centred around bannock, even the sandwiches have bannock instead of bread.
Bannock served as a staple food for early settlers and fur traders and most Indigenous nations in North America make some form of it, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.
The version we make today came from Scotland, believed to be introduced to Indigenous peoples by Scottish fur traders in the 1700s and 1800s.
The Scots cooked it in a griddle on the floor beside the fire and used barley, peameal or oatmeal until wheat flour was later introduced, where Indigenous people often used corn flour or plants.
When Europeans colonized Canada, Indigenous people were moved onto reserves, unable to hunt as they once did, and made bannock from the rations supplied by the government in order to survive.
Bannock is popular at powwows and festivals, and there are several different versions.
READ MORE: iN VIDEO: Kamloops baker gives crash course on making the perfect macaron
With Kekuli Cafe locations in West Kelowna, Kelowna, Merritt and Kamloops, the Indigenous cuisine reflects traditional foods many Indigenous communities grew up with, and is focussed around bannock. Kekuli Cafe is known for their inclusive hiring practises and giving back to the community.
Go here to learn more about Kekuli Café.
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