Old fashion foods

Traditional Aboriginal foods received a southern touch for students at an elementary public school.

Algonquin Public School Elders Program invited Marc Sault, 57, to show students how to make traditional foods on Friday. Sault prepared foods from wild rice, corn, rabbit, moose and bannock. The Elders Program received a $450 grant from the Take Heart Schools initiated by the Thunder Bay District Health Unit to encourage students to eat healthy and be active.

Sault, a member of Mississaugas First Nation in southern Ontario, stood behind a table and helped students prepare the dough to make bannock. Ashton Netemegesic, 10, rolled the dough into a ball and had Sault place it into the deep fryer.

Netemegesic said he enjoyed making and eating the bannock he made.

Later, Sault boiled rice in the nearby kitchen and handed it out to a crowd of eager students.

Sault said Aboriginal youth from an urban environment were generally unfamiliar to traditional ways of cooking. Students from a First Nation community probably knew more about geese and other foods from the north, he said.

"This is just a sharing of traditional foods," Sault said. "Most people when they think traditional foods they think moose and wild rice but there are a lot of other things like beans, squashes and all different teas."

Sault worked in the region for Seven Generations Education Institute that provides grants to students going to a post-secondary school. Teachers from Algonquin asked for months for him to come to the school to share his knowledge. Sault was used to making most of the foods since he does it at fall harvest festivals every year.

Being from southern Ontario, Sault said he knows more about corn than more traditional northern foods. He said he is probably the only person in the North who makes corn traditionally.

Carolyn Chukra, Aboriginal community liaison and partnership office with Lakehead Public School Board, said three classes were going to be taught by Sault how to make traditional foods in the basement area.

Part of Chukra’s job is to create more cultural awareness by introducing Aboriginal elders and senators to students to give more history of the First Nation and Métis people.

"The importance to having Sault here is to connect students to the community," Chukra said. "The students have been great. They have been very engaged and have been enjoying the tastes of traditional foods that have been around for many years."

Chukra said students who weren’t Aboriginal were already familiar with the kinds of foods being made by Sault.