In 2018, Curtis Cardinal launched Tee Pee Treats, a catering company in Edmonton that focuses on Indigenous meals and dishes with Indigenous influences.Supplied
By the age of eight, Theresa Contois was tall enough to reach the controls on her family’s kitchen stove. To her parents, that meant it was time to cook.
Contois, who is Anishinaabe and Lakota Sioux, quickly learned the art of making dinners as a member of a bustling household of 20. By 2011, she was an accomplished chef and Indigenous food instructor, launching Cedar Feast House Catering in Vancouver.
The company is dedicated to serving Indigenous cuisine, which she describes as medicine food that nourishes body and soul, to both clients and unhoused people on Hastings Street, where the business is located.
Cedar Feast House has since expanded and it continues to serve Indigenous dishes such as rhubarb BBQ pulled-bison sliders, pumpkin-crusted halibut, and wild-rice cranberry salads, in the province and beyond. There are plans to launch a mobile trailer to make food even more accessible to Vancouver residents.
Contois is part of a growing wave of Indigenous caterers in Canada who are expanding their services in response to increasing interest. Though their origin stories and culinary styles vary, these caterers share a unified mission: to serve their communities and educate people about Indigenous food traditions. “It’s about having a heart, being humble, and realizing it’s about community,” Contois says. “Without community, you don’t go anywhere.”
For Curtis Cardinal, serving community means feeding inner-city residents in Edmonton. Every six months Cardinal organizes Giving Back to the Streets, an event where he and a group of volunteers cook and serve approximately 300 meals consisting of sacred stews and bannock to those in need.
Cardinal, who is Whitefish Lake First Nations, grew up in Slave Lake and other northern Alberta communities. In 2018, he launched Tee Pee Treats, a catering company in Edmonton that focuses on Indigenous meals and dishes with Indigenous influences. Bannock donairs, chili, and bannock berry cake are just some of the foods Cardinal excels at, thanks to the cooking techniques his mother and aunties taught him.
Charcuterie service Tawnshi works with Indigenous chefs when curating Indigenous food, such as pickled milkweed pods, for its charcuterie boards.Tawnshi Charcuterie
Tee Pee Treats has gained province-wide attention over the past six years. Since its launch, the catering company had a brief stint as a pop-up restaurant while maintaining its reputation as a go-to place in Edmonton for fresh bannock, a dish that Cardinal originally learned from his father. He also plans to launch freeze-dried bannock in stores in the future.
“I’m still learning as I go along,” Cardinal says. “But my vision is to have an Indigenous food company known around the world, not just in Alberta.”
The path to becoming a caterer as an Indigenous person is not without its challenges. The legacy of residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, and other systemic barriers have served as obstacles. Contois is the daughter of residential-school survivors, which she says led to a challenging upbringing, abusive romantic relationships and experiences of homelessness and substance abuse while living on Hastings Street. She credits her mother’s persistence for leading her to heal and become a caterer and instructor.
Cardinal, too, faced obstacles. He says his childhood was marked by constant moving due to his parents’ separation, and he experienced the tragic loss of a close cousin in a drinking and driving accident. This death, Cardinal says, led to alcohol addiction, which he eventually resolved in 2012, after three attempts at rehabilitation and being taken care of by family.
Barriers such as the Sixties Scoop also led some caterers to rediscover their Indigenous heritage later in life. The Canada-wide government program was named after a time when police and child-protective services kidnapped at least 20,000 Indigenous children and put them up for adoption to white families.
Destiny Moser, a chef based in Waterloo, Ont., began exploring her Indigenous roots in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Moser, who is part of the Ojibwe tribe of the Rainy River Band, left her corporate job to care of her children full-time, earned a culinary degree, and delved into the history of Indigenous food.
In 2021 she says the loss of her mother, a Sixties Scoop survivor, and the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential school sites, intensified her commitment to her culinary project, FoodZen, followed a year later by Cedar Spoon Indigenous Catering, in partnership with Bingemans Catering and Conference Centre.
Caterers Marina LeClair and Trevor Jansen say they also rediscovered their heritage during COVID-19. After they lost their corporate jobs, they travelled from B.C. to Manitoba. There, LeClair reconnected with her father, who’s Red River Métis, and learned more about her culture. This prompted Jansen to learn more about his Gitxsan roots, which originate with his mother, a Sixties Scoop survivor.
Destiny Moser launched FoodZen, a culinary project that offers school workshops, in 2021, followed by catering company Cedar Spoon in 2022.Sylvia Pond Photography
Rediscovering their origins later in life did not stop these caterers from launching and growing their businesses. The hardships of 2021 cemented Moser’s desire to pursue her culinary projects, FoodZen and Cedar Spoon, full time. Since its launch in October, 2022, Cedar Spoon has gained widespread attention for its “hyperlocal and ultra-seasonal” Indigenous food, such as sage roasted duck legs and maple butternut squash sorbet.
Moser says FoodZen also emphasizes education, providing workshops at high schools in the Kitchener-Waterloo region about Indigenous food and culture. She adds she’s excited about the company’s coming meal program for kids, and working with more Indigenous chefs in the area. “I felt that I had a bigger purpose,” Moser says of her decision to pursue FoodZen and Cedar Spoon full-time. “Once I realized that there was a bigger message that I needed to spread, it really became an easy decision.”
In 2022 LeClair and Jansen used their newly gained connection to their cultures to launch what they call a modern Indigenous charcuterie service, Tawnshi (which translates to “Hello” in Michif). The service incorporates Indigenous food items to an otherwise typically Eurocentric charcuterie board, like pickled milkweed pods, cedar jelly and dulce (also known as sea bacon).
QR codes are placed in boxes to inform consumers about the food and how to eat it. Having gained a loyal clientele of customers in B.C., LeClair and Jansen hope to grow further and work with Indigenous chefs across Canada in sourcing food for their boxes.
“We are part of the community now,” Jansen says. “As much as we’ve been disconnected from it for so long, the more we reach out to people, the more we share our story. The more we hear our story echoed back at us, the more realizing you’re a part of a community that is supportive and wants to grow with us.”
Or as LeClair puts it: “It’s been quite the healing journey.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly captioned the third photo, which depicts Destiny Moser of Cedar Spoon Indigenous Catering. This article also has been updated to clarify that Ms. Moser launched Food Zen, a culinary project that also provides education about Indigenous food and culture, prior to launching Cedar Spoon.
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Indigenous Enterprises section. If you have suggestions for future stories, reach out to IE@globeandmail.com.