"Woman Trying To Preserve Native Cooking"

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. (CP) - When Emily Daigneault was a little girl growing up on the Indian reserve near Parry Sound, Ont., she watched her parents prepare meals in the bush - often fish steamed on hot coals in a birch-bark wrapper.

Now the 58-year-old St. Catharines resident prepares native food for her 11 grandchildren and for children at the Niagara Regional Native Centre's day camps in the hope that the ways of her people won't be forgotten.

"When I put my big cast iron pan on the fire, they're just so interested," she said. "They've never seen anything like it before."

Native cooking is often not learned by young people, many of whom live in the cities now, said Daigneault, who can still speak Ojibway, although she has been living in St. Catharines since 1957.

One reason they don't learn about the food is that it is hard to find the staples of the native diet - lake fish, game, wild roots, herbs and berries - at the local supermarket.

But Daigneault manages to prepare traditional recipes for special occasions by getting venison and other game from hunters or the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources, or by substituting more readily available foods.

While some may turn up their noses at eating bear, she says it is a treat.

"Bear meat is very dark. You roast it until it's very crisp. It just melts in your mouth."

Muskrat is another of her favorites.

"It's very tender," she said.

Other native dishes she has eaten include frogs' legs, turtle soup, roast venison, squirrel, rabbit, racoon and moose. A tasty way to prepare game that she remembers from childhood is to dress it with onions and carrots and roast it slowly.

Wild garlic (also known as wild leek or onion) was frequently used to season meat, said Daigneault. The plant, which resembles a small green onion, grows profusely in the bush and is known for its strong odor.

"You'd know somebody that had been in the bush because you could smell them coming from quite a distance," she said, adding that she used to munch on it often as a child.

Maple syrup, wild mint and berries were also used as seasoning. Berries, often used as a sweetener for desserts, were dried into little cakes in the oven. In earlier times, they were dried in the sun to be boiled and eaten in the winter or added to cakes or bannock.

Wild rice and corn were the main cereals and there were innumerable edible roots and plants in the bush, said Daigneault. She recalled eating wild turnips and arrowhead (wild potatoes) that had been baked under the coals of the campfire.