From spicy to wild game, Saskatchewan loves comfort food

On this Thanksgiving Monday, Saskatoon Morning explored the idea of comfort food and what it means for different people in across the province.

For Regina author Zarqa Nawaz, it's all about butter chicken. 

"My mom came from Pakistan, and raised us in Canada but raised us on Indian food," she said.  

Her children love the intensity of the spices and flavours involved in the dish, she said. It involves marinating the chicken overnight, barbecuing it and then cooking it again in the same spices.

"By the time you're done it has this magical roasted, cooked barbecue flavour." Nawaz said, adding that it's also labour intensive. 

'They remind you of home and childhood and when things were better and safe and easier- Zarqa Nawaz

When she thinks of her own comfort foods, she thinks of her mother's kitchen. 

"You know those are the things that made you feel more comfortable after school, Nawaz said. "They remind you of home and childhood and when things were better and safe and easier. Life was much less complicated." 

Creative use of ingredients 

Saskatoon food author Amy-Jo Ehman has just published a new book called Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens. She said comfort food in the past had a common factor: a limited selection of food such as flour, oatmeal, spices and dried fruit.

"They just were so creative at taking the same ingredients and doing very interesting, different ways with them depending on what their ethnic background was," she said. 

For Regina chef Dickie Yuzicapi, he thinks of his great-grandparents who raised him on Okanese First Nation.

"There was always a pot of soup on the stove, there was always fresh bannock baked every morning," he said. 

He also remembers rabbit stew and other wild foods.

"My grandfather used to always give me four bullets every morning and say go find supper kind of thing," he said.  

Yuzicapi said he also turns to hot breakfast cereals and fruit crisps and cobblers as the mercury starts to fall.

"It doesn't really matter what you're cooking, as long as you're happy having it," he said.  

Brittany Brown is the owner and main baker at the Saskatoon restaurant, Citizen Café. 

Several of the desserts she makes were inspired by a woman she met while backpacking in Germany. 

"I always go back to Oma Hella."  

Brown spent a day cooking with Hella and has continued to make German style desserts such as käsekuchen, a light cheesecake.

"You know what, it's not overly fussy," she said. "It's good ingredients. Nothing is decorated in any kind of colour, or overdone with pearl dust or anything like that. it's just basic ingredients put together and made beautiful."

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