Chef Zach Keeshig is creating a modern adaptation of traditional aboriginal cuisine.
He is offering a six-course tasting menu at a reservation-only pop-up restaurant at Heartwood Hall July 11.
Keeshig has been teaching about living off the land and food foraging skills in the indigenous classes at St. Mary's High School. He brought his ancestors' food to the city at the Gitche Namewikwedong Reconciliation Garden event in Owen Sound last Saturday, and will be creating the Feast in the Field as a fundraiser for Neighbourwoods North's Healing Path. He has cooking classes at Cape Croker (Neyaashiinigmiing), and wants to create a dining destination there that merges food with the environment - growing and foraging with cooking and preserving.
Starting in August, Keeshig will be hosting private dinners in a dining room he has built outside his home. He will be cooking an eight- course menu consisting of locally sourced, foraged and garden grown herbs and many of the course will be cooked/ smoked over an open fire.
The menu will consist of his signature dishes ;
Amuse
Smoked fish flat bread.
Dejong acres rabbit mousse & wild juniper skewer.
Ojibwe bannock with cured georgian bay fish.
Main courses
Wood fire cooked fish
Wild ginger sorbet
Beef strip loin with ravioli
Dessert
Dark maple tart with wild peppermint ganache
Petite four of local oat macaroon
More details are available from Chef Keeshig, Owen Sound's pioneering chef for foraging and tasting menus.
