Proof that the best breakfasts are of the unpronounceable kind this is a bit like a bread mixed with a pancake mixed with a brioche. Or something. And I know it begins with an ‘s’. The most important thing is that:

a)      It is super-tasty.

b)      You serve it with maple syrup.

Canadian Breakfast Bread

Which are both key cornerstones of any Canadian recipe. We had this after a dawn ‘pipe ceremony’ – the kind of thing you see in old-style country and westerns where the white people are welcomed in to smoke a peace pipe with the chief.

It starts with a long blessing of the tobacco and liberal dispensation of sage smoke, which is a cleansing thing, and the pipe then theoretically achieves the internal job of what the external herbs have done to the air around you.

I love anything even vaguely spiritual and with a toasty fire, my own pair of moccasins and the promise of food at the end of it this was about the best religious experience I’d ever had (Christians are notoriously stingy with the wafers and I’ve noticed other faiths seem to have a certain meanness where food and heating are concerned but maybe I’m missing something important about God).

Me, Dominique and Mary in a fug of sage smoke

The native bread was the best thing ever on a cold morning, but it went so well with the maple syrup that you can see why diabetes is a problem amongst the natives. Brilliantly, however, lovely native medicine man Dominic (pictured) who hosted the ceremony had managed to cure himself of the disorder which just goes to show where mind over maple syrup can get you…
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