Bannock

Scottish/Gaelic bannock adapted by Indigenous North American peoples from the 18th–19th century through fur trade contact; now claimed as a traditional Indigenous food across Canada and the northern United States

A simple quick bread of flour, water, and fat — baked in a pan, fried, or cooked over a fire — that has been adopted and transformed by Indigenous communities across North America from its Scottish/Gaelic origins as a camping provision brought by Hudson's Bay Company and Northwest Company traders in the early 19th century. Bannock is pan-Indigenous today: from the Dene people of the subarctic to the Métis of the prairies, from the Inuit of the Arctic to the Coast Salish of British Columbia. Each community has adapted the recipe to local conditions and ingredients. Bannock's relationship to Indigenous food culture is similar to frybread's — a colonial-era adoption that has become community-owned tradition — but bannock predates American reservation policy and carries fewer overtones of forced displacement.

Eaten at community gatherings, as a trail food, at hockey games (in Canada), and with tea; the fried version is eaten hot with butter and jam; the baked version eaten with soup or stew; the flavour is neutral — the bannock is the delivery vehicle for whatever is served alongside