By Charlene Tebbutt

Cultural groups serve up traditional foods at annual summer fair

Aug 3, 2018 | 8:00 AM

Tasty treats and fun food have always been part of the annual summer fair, and a number of local groups are working to share their cultures while filling hungry bellies.

Patrons at this year’s Prince Albert Exhibition can sample an array of fried, salty, and sweet treats along the midway, or they can try some more traditional foods including donairs, Vietnamese dishes, burgers made with fresh bannock, or perogies.

Silvana and Huzni Markos set up a booth at the exhibition with their business, Selena’s Donair, which recently opened in Prince Albert. The booth is serving pita wraps, beef or chicken on a bun, and donairs featuring beef, chicken, or lamb.

Since her childhood in Baghdad, Silvana said wraps and donairs have remained a family favourite.  

“It feels home when we cook it. This is what we eat, this is what we are kind of brought up to and it’s fun; a lot of people are enjoying it,” Silvana said.

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Many of the booths are staffed by volunteers who look forward to participating in the exhibition each year. That’s true for the Veselka Ukrainian Culture and Heritage Club, which has manned a booth at the event for more than 25 years. Club President Jan Olesko told paNOW the club had nearly 100 volunteers come out to help this year. The club serves traditional Ukrainian food at the annual fair including perogies, borscht, and cabbage rolls, and fires up a clay oven each year for fresh, home-cooked bread.

“Food connects us to each other, and we feel that we can showcase our culture and our heritage by doing this and, in a way, honouring our ancestors,” Olesko said. “We pride ourselves on wholesome food.”

Across at the bread booth, Ron Adamko was busy showing Zenik Rabeij how to cook perfectly-browned loaves of white and brown bread in the clay oven, which reaches 600 degrees.  A veteran of the Prince Albert Exhibition, Adamko has been baking bread at the Ukrainian booth for 10 years.

“The people that come from the Ukraine, they come and they did it here, and with their experience we’ve been learning from them … so that it would continue for years, because once you give it up it’ll never come back,” Adamko said.

Also this … check out my story tomorrow on @princealbertnow about the traditional foods being served up at the summer fair pic.twitter.com/YWYkxfBYri

— Charlene Tebbutt (@CharleneTebbutt) August 3, 2018

That sentiment was shared by the volunteers at the Prince Albert Indian and Métis Friendship Centre booth, who gladly served up a bannock burger for a taste test this week. Shannon Arcand said bannock has been a staple amongst Indigenous people for generations and they enjoy being able to share it with others, some of whom have never tried it before. Arcand said the booth has been busy this week and the money they raise supports cultural activities for local youths.

“We still eat it at home as a regular meal,” Arcand added.

The 135th annual Prince Albert Exhibition wraps up Saturday evening.

Charlene.tebbutt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @CharleneTebbutt