Bloggers.com

I'm listed in Life & Lifestyle

Cattails in the WInd

Cattails in the WInd

Home Town Canada

Georgetown, Ontario's Hometown Canada Community
Community information including businesses, real estate, travel, events, history, trivia, classified ads, forums and more.

Followers

BlogCatalog

Personal Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

Bannock Bread or Trail Bread

Posted by Lorac Monday 11 May 2009

Canada being such a diverse ethnicity from our beginning, we don’t have a lot of truly traditional foods. Flour was a luxury item in the early days of the fur trade. It was used to thicken pemmican style soup. Pemmican is a mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious emergency food. The word comes from Cree word pimihkan, “pemmican”. It was invented by the native people of North America. Flour was used as well to thicken Rubaboo which was a stew eaten by the Coureurs des bois and voyageurs (fur traders) and Métis natives. This was made of peas and/or corn and bear or pork fat thickened with bread or flour. They often mixed in pemmican and maple sugar. Occasionally when there was enough, flour was used to make galettes. Galette is the name used by voyageurs of the North West Company for an unleavened flour-water biscuit made by baking in a frying pan, or in the ashes of the campfire. Bannock is the name used by voyageurs of the North West Company. The Selkirk Settlers referred to their flour water biscuit as bannock. Eventually bannock became the name accepted. Bannock acquired other names, too: bush bread, trail bread, or grease bread. The traditional way to prepare bannock was to mix the ingredients into a large round biscuit and bake in a frying pan or propped up against sticks by the campfire. The frying pan usually was tilted against a rock so that it slanted towards the fire for part of the baking. Bannock is a truly Canadian food.

Bannock

Bannock is cooked in the oven or over a charcoal or open fire. Recipe for Bannock on a stick follows.

Ingredients:

  1. 4 cups of all purpose flour
  2. 1 tablespoon of sugar
  3. 2 tablespoons of baking powder
  4. 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  5. 2 cups of water or milk
Procedure
  1. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.
  2. Measure the water or milk and add it to the flour mixture with a fork. A dough should form. If it is too dry and crumbly add a little more liquid, a tablespoon at a time.
  3. Turn the dough out onto a surface lightly coated with flour. Knead for about 3 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 Celsius
  5. Pat the dough into a circle about 3/4 inch thick. Transfer the dough onto a well greased cookie sheet. Prick the dough all over with a fork.
  6. Bake about 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Bannock on a Stick
Bannock on a Stick

  1. Prepare bannock dough as above. Have ready several sticks 3-4 feet long.
  2. Divide the dough into golf ball size balls. Shape each ball into a rope about 8 inches long by rolling between the hands.
  3. Wrap each dough rope around the end of a stick working length wise down the stick.
  4. Hold the dough over a bed of red hot coals, turning frequently to bake the dough evenly.
Serves 10-12



2 comments

  1. Just Jules Says:
  2. ok, seriously - I have to follow you just to be able to come back to this post! what a great addition to our back yard camp fires. Did you see Julochka's post on this? Her blog is Moments of Perfect Clarity - and my co-partner on our daughter's blog - Trans Atlantic Learnind Adventures.

    anyway - came over just to tell you thank you for getting my story going this morning! Love the direction you took it

     
  3. Lorac Says:
  4. I did see Julochka's post and asked her what she used as a recipe so I could try it out too. Loved your idea of a story for us all to write can't wait to see the completion!

     

Post a Comment

Thank you for being gracious enough to leave a message! It is the best part of my day.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Canadian Please!

Powered By Blogger

About Me

My Photo
Lorac
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada
I have lived in Georgetown for 37 years but have traveled around a great deal. I own my own business which takes a lot of my time but try to blog as much as possible! I love to take pictures, no training, just a love of photography. Enjoy the pics but please do not copy them.
View my complete profile

Please do not copy!

Copyright ~~All content and photos are original to Carol Merten, Ahhh...The Cottage Life! and are copyrighted. Please do not copy, or download any content without express written consent. All content and photos remain the sole property of Carol Merten.

Visitors