Inez Cook and Air Canada have partnered up to bring Indigenous cuisine to travellers at YVR.Getty Images
The founder of an award-winning Indigenous restaurant is now the first Indigenous food purveyor in a Canadian airport.
For Inez Cook, owner of Vancouver’s Salmon n’ Bannock and its airport offshoot Salmon n’ Bannock On The Fly, getting her food on the menu at the YVR Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges is a big deal. It’s also personal.
“I’m Air Canada family,” says Ms. Cook, who retired from her 33-year career as a flight attendant with the airline two years ago.
“When I reached out to them and said I think it’s time that Air Canada is the first airline in Canada to introduce Indigenous culinary to their guests, I was really elated that they were open to the conversation.”
Likening herself to “a dog with a bone,” Ms. Cook – who is a member of the Nuxalk Nation in Northern British Columbia – saw a moment for real leadership (both for her and the airline) when the stars aligned and she opened her airport location right around the time she retired as a flight attendant.
“It was interesting because they had just posted an article about how they were introducing all these different foods at Air Canada,” she says. “I e-mailed them and said, ‘That’s amazing, but once again Indigenous is not on that list.’”
Inez Cook is the founder and owner of Salmon N’ Bannock and its sister location at the Vancouver International Airport.Supplied
Not long after, Air Canada set up a meeting with her and eventually launched a partnership that was eight months in the making. Travellers can now find Salmon n’ Bannock’s Three Sisters soup featured in the YVR Maple Leaf Lounges.
Air Canada is also working with other Indigenous chefs for their versions of the traditional soup in its Toronto and Montreal lounges.
Geneviève Piché, Air Canada’s manager of premium lounges, says partnering with Ms. Cook was “a natural choice.” The fact that she already had a restaurant in the airport was a “a serendipitous alignment of values and vision,” Ms. Piché adds.
“There are many talented chefs, but Inez’s journey is particularly inspiring. Her resilience in overcoming life challenges, her years of dedication to Air Canada, and her success in establishing an Indigenous restaurant within an airport setting all contribute to why she was the ideal choice to be part of this menu launch,” Ms. Piché says. “Her story embodies the values of perseverance, passion, and cultural celebration.”
“I’m elated,” says Ms. Cook of the partnership. “I was there for the launch, and I was actually handing soup out.”
She’s made a few more appearances since. “Once I was in there and they were replenishing it because it was empty. That made me happy.”
Ms. Cook says it has been “incredibly meaningful” for her, bringing together all the different threads of her professional and personal life.
She recounted the third meeting with Air Canada and her team when the airline said it wanted to move forward with the partnership after they had sampled six different soups.
“We hugged, and then we were laughing with tears in our eyes,” Ms. Cook says. “The team did a whole group hug, and everybody was just jumping up and down. It was a beautiful moment.”
You can now find traditional three sisters soup at the Vancouver International Airport via Salmon n’ Bannock On The Fly.Getty Images
While she’s the first to say running an airport restaurant is not without its challenges, which include language barriers and cultural knowledge gaps, Ms. Cook has had rewarding feedback from those who experience her take on authentic Indigenous food at Salmon n’ Bannock On The Fly, too.
“We see it especially now with the current climate, and people wanting to support local,” she says, telling the story of one customer who tried one of their beers made by a local Metis brewery. “It was so funny. He went over to the neighbour’s line up and said, ‘What are you doing in this line up? You should go over next door. It’s local, it’s amazing.’ I was laughing so hard.”
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Indigenous Enterprises section. If you have suggestions for future stories, reach out to IE@globeandmail.com.
