Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre and Roots Community Food Centre offer traditional meals for seniors and Elders
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre (TBIFC) and Roots Community Food Centre’s Traditional Meals for Seniors and Elders featured a Three Sisters Mash with wild rice (manomin) pudding and berries dessert on July 25.
“It was excellent, very healthy,” says Paul Francis, a Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory citizen who lives in Thunder Bay. “I come here every Friday at the end of the month — I like trying different foods and see what they’ve got. Plus, I’m in the program with the Friendship Centre, they supply me $40 a month to go and get fresh fruit and vegetables from this little store here (at Roots Community Food Centre).”
Francis says this was the first time he had manomin in a dessert.
“That was excellent, I really enjoyed that,” Francis says. “I don’t think I’ve ever had it before [in a dessert]. I’ve eaten it in soup and just on the plate with moose meat.”
Anang, a Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek citizen, says the meal, which was inspired by a dish from The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen cookbook by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley, was different.
“It was different, I never ate something braised with cedar before,” Anang says. “I appreciate that they try to make Indigenous meals here. I’m still hoping for goose — that was the best meal I ever had, it was made on an open fire.”
John Hodson, director of the Maamaawisiiwin Education Research Centre in Thunder Bay, says the meal was reminiscent of food from Haudenosaunee territory.
“It’s kind of a casserole with a poached egg in it and then a wild rice pudding with strawberries, blueberries,” Hodson says, noting that he usually attends the TBIFC-Roots meals twice a week. “Dinner is on Wednesday and then lunch on Friday. It’s kind of nice because it’s a nice mixture of people.”
Patricia-Lee Dunnigan, Indigenous mental health and wellness coordinator at TBIFC, says the Three Sisters Mash included a lot of local ingredients.
“A lot of the ingredients, like the mint and the sage and the sunchokes, were all made in Roots gardens,” Dunnigan says. “And the kale as well, it came straight out of their gardens in the backyard and on their other locations, so I think that was really cool that they didn’t have to transport those or bring them in from other communities. It’s made here in our community by our youth and it’s feeding our Elders — it’s like a full circle moment for our community.”
Erin Murphy, community meal coordinator at Roots, says they do the Traditional Meals for Seniors and Elders on the last Friday of the month.
“Today’s meal was inspired by Indigenous chef Sean Sherman, who has a really awesome cookbook,” Murphy says. “He has this Three Sisters Mash, it’s got cedar braised beans, some summer squash, so zucchini that came from our own garden, and corn, there’s two types of corn, there’s sweet corn and hominy corn, and it’s also flavoured with some maple syrup, some sage and mint from our garden, and a little bit of salt and juniper.”
Murphy says they always base the choice of meals they serve on the foods they have available.
“Because our gardens are filling up with zucchini, I looked for something we can have with zucchini,” Murphy says. “And we also have all this wild rice that our friends at Matawa (First Nations) donated to us, so that is why our dessert today is a wild rice pudding.”
Murphy adds that they will be holding The Grand Parade fundraising walk on Sept. 20, beginning at 11 a.m. at Marina Park in Thunder Bay. Information is posted online.