'Forgotten art': Indigenous chef debuts traditional menu in Montreal

Traditionally, recipes are passed down from one generation to the next. But within many First Nations communities, that knowledge transfer has been disrupted because of Canada'shistory of repression of Indigenous cultures.

That's part of the impetus behind Montreal-based chef George Lenser'sprojectto bring Indigenous cooking to the restaurant scene, starting with an Indigenous tasting menu on Friday at the comuse du fier monde.

"Imagine those grandparents or your parents going to residential school or [being] part of the Sixties scoopor part of the Indian hospitals, and they went missingand they just did not have that knowledge," Lensertold CBC Daybreak.

"So there's that additional gap that really makes you forget."

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Getting the right ingredients can be challenging.

For example, Lenser says that Oolichan grease, a fermented fish oil made from smelt in whichthe fish are dried, fermented and used as a seasoning base, can be next toimpossible to find.

It's a "forgotten art," according to Lenser, who has tried and failed at making his own in the past.

The tasting menu is one step in bringing those traditions to the table in a city where Indigenous dishes are mostlyabsent from the menu.

Lenser grew up in British Columbia and is part Wet'suwet'en, Nisga'a and Squamish.

He moved to Montreal three years ago to start working at Joe Beef restaurant.

Lenser hopes to open his own restaurant someday.

"It's going to be a slow process, there's lots of learning to be done."

Modern twist on traditional food

While some Indigenous restaurants in other parts of Canada aim to createa pre-colonial menu, Lenser's inspiration is more modern.

"We're contemporary people. We're here. We do very contemporary things, we're musicians that are rapping or in metal bands," he said.

His vision is reflected in hisfive-course vegetarian tasting menuthat borrows from traditional offerings spanning the country, from east to west, withdishes such ashisThree Sisters salad.

It's his own twist on the Mohawk dish,normally a stew made with game meat, that references the "three sisters" which Mohawks plant together:corn, squash and beans.

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His gnocchiforestire,made with mushrooms andfiddleheads, is meant to mimic B.C.'s boreal forest.

Food as resistance

But one dish bears a particular significance: a rhubarb tart with wild rice whipped cream.

Dairy is not a traditionally Indigenous ingredient, but in the First Peoples Studies department at Concordia University, where he is a student, Lenser found that crme frache became more than an ingredient.

"I stumbled upon this story of this boy that was in charge of gathering the milk, processing it, and turning it into cream at one of the residential schools," he said.

The dairy would usually be sold or fed to the teachers rather than the students. The boy in the story would steal cream, store it in a bottle and sneak it in his shoe back to his room where it would sit overnight.

"Next day, next meal, it would turn into crme frache and ... he would pass it around to all the kids, and they would pour it into their oatmeal," he said.

"They would get that much more nutrients and flavour," said Lenser. "It's such beautiful way of resistance."

The event takes place Friday, June 2 from 4 to 9 p.m.at the Ecomuse du fiermonde, 2050 Amherst Street. The five-course menu costs $22.