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- Rooted Catering
Bannock donut holes
With berry sage dipping sauce
Bannock donut holes tossed in icing sugar and served with blackberry sage dipping sauce.
Bannock is one of the most popular and widespread Indigenous foods throughout Canada. Almost everyone has a specific way they make their bannock. It can be baked, done on the stove top, deep fried, or cooked on a stick on the open fire. Bannock is great paired with soups, stews, cooked wild berries and dips. Traditional Indigenous versions of bannock can be made from corn, nut meal, flour, and ground plant bulbs.
Sage has a long history of use as a spice and for health purposes. It can be eaten whole or ground and has a strong, slightly minty taste. Sage is considered sacred to Indigenous people. White sage is often used for meditation, smudging, and cleansing the spirit. Indigenous people believe that desert sage is a healing plant, a claim that has been verified by scientific analysis—learn more here. A natural sage that grows in BC is sagebrush.
Berries hold cultural significance for Indigenous Peoples as a source of food and medicine. They can be enjoyed in sweet recipes like this one and or savoury recipes. But berries have more than just culinary benefits to offer—many Indigenous Peoples use berries to help preserve meat, cook them into medicinal syrups, and in some cases the leaves and roots of berry plants are also used for their healing properties. There are many kinds of berries that can be found growing seasonally in BC including, blackberries, salmonberries, blueberries, cranberries, currants, gooseberries, salal, raspberries and strawberries.
Teetl'it Gwich’in Language Lesson
Tuhch’uh | Bannock
Jak | Berry
“Throughout my life my mom was always picking berries. She uses them both in savoury and sweet items. Cranberries were cooked down and served over ice cream or a mixture of wild berries were made into a trifle. Berries were added to fish eggs and fish guts and cooked down. Traditionally berries were pounded including the seeds to a pulp with a formed rock. The pulp was then formed into Pattie’s and dried in the sun. The process takes 2 days. Patties can be used for future use. A way our people preserved food to plan ahead and avoid waste.”
-Chef Steph
Meet The Chef
Steph Baryluk
Chef Steph Baryluk (BAR-luck) created the Rooted Catering and Dining Commons menus at SFU. She is Teetl'it Gwich'in from Teetl'it Zheh (Fort McPherson), Treaty 11 Territory located in the Northwest Territories and now resides in Tsawwassen, BC with her husband and two kids. After completing her Red Seal as a Cook she knew she wanted to do more with her Indigenous roots. Chef Steph has hosted cooking classes and speaking engagements in her hometown, at the FAO in Rome, and across the Lower Mainland. She also launched her own company, MRS B’S JERKY, which is a play on traditional caribou dried meat ‘Nilii Gaii’ but made with beef. She's excited to share her Indigenous cuisine and stories with the SFU community.
