Image: Facebook
For years, Lana Donaldson carried a tattered piece of paper folded into her wallet. On it, the logo she had designed for the mobile bannock truck she hoped to one day open.
Donaldson, who works at Glenrosa Middle School in Aboriginal education, says she’s had the dream for years, but with young kids and her job wasn’t sure she’d ever make it happen.
“It’s kind of been a dream of mine to have this for a very long time, but there’s always the usual barriers like money, how are we going to fit it into time, and so many questions,” she recalled recently.
But now, after years of dreaming, she’s finally going for it.
This summer, Donaldson is teaming up with her husband Paul, as well as their boys Tanner and Ryen, to open a mobile food truck that will serve the Aboriginal fried dough.
With Nomadic Bannock, the Donaldsons are taking Lana’s secret family recipe and serving it up in “somewhat gourmet flavours” like sun-dried tomato and dill; onion and chive; and sweeter flavours like apple pie, and cinnamon and sugar.
They’ll also serve popular favourites like Indian Tacos and Bannock dogs.
“So many people have asked me for the recipe over the years, and I kept saying ‘umm, well there’s a reason I can’t give it to you and you’ll just have to wait,’” Lana admits with a chuckle.
Image: Facebook
Ryen and Tanner in their Nomadic Bannock uniforms
For years, Lana (along with her colleague Carrie Briglio) has been serving her bannock as part of the bake sales she puts on with the students at Glenrosa.
With feedback from that “test market” under her belt, her kids now old enough to come along, and enough money saved to get the infrastructure they need, she and Paul decided the time was right to make her dream a reality.
“(This was) just something we wanted to do, and make come alive. So many things in life we sit back and think, oh I should have done this, or I’d love to do this, but there’s always lots of excuses, and we thought, you know what, let’s just make this happen. So we did it little bit by little bit,” she says.
Once they got things moving, the couple sat Ryen and Tanner down to watch the Netflix movie, Chef, which is about a father and son teaming up to run a food truck.
“They were so inspired by that, and now they can’t wait to do this,” she said.
Not long ago, Lana and Paul purchased the truck, and just this week got it decked out with the Nomadic Bannock decals.
They’ve already got a few gigs lined up for the summer, as well—first at the Peachland World of Wheels, and later at Westside Dayz.
Lana says she can’t wait to get out and show people a food that’s such an important part of her culture.
“There’s so many visitors that come to our town… that it’s kind of part of the history here that when they come here they may not ever have had bannock before, and they want to try bannock,” she said. “And we’re like mobile culture, we can share wherever we go.”
For more information, check out Nomadic Bannock on Facebook.
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