WILDWOOD, Alta. – An Alberta bison producer has created a unique Canadian meal that gives bison, the all-Canadian food, an ethnic twist.
Using family recipes passed down for generations, Gulzar Lalany has developed three complete frozen meals using bison from her A & G Bisonview Ranch at Wildwood east of Edmonton.
“I’ve taken a totally Canadian meat and added the ethnic population and you have a product that is more uniquely Canadian than anything,” Lalany said.
With the help of food scientists at the Food Processing Centre in Leduc, Alta., and Alberta Agriculture marketing staff, Lalany spent last year turning the food she has made for her family for years into a product suitable for grocery stores’ frozen food sections.
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“It was like a scientific experiment,” said Lalany, who had to change the recipe’s one teaspoon of salt to two kilograms of salt to accommodate industrial-sized meal preparations.
Instead of waiting for a taste testing report from a control group, Lalany watched through a two-way mirror in the test kitchen as people tasted her products for the first time.
“That was very nerve wracking,” said Lalany, who felt she needed to see first hand what the taste testers said about her food.
“I need to see people eating my food. I need to see the customers’ eyes,” she said.
“It’s very much pioneering and that’s the excitement of the industry. It has challenges and the excitement.”
Once her products were packaged, she even rented space at a farmers’ market in Edmonton for four months to see and hear what customers thought of her product and to help refine her food.
Here she met an oil worker from Fort McMurray who bought a week’s supply of the frozen dinners to take back to the job site for a quick meal.
It was also at the farmers’ market that she realized the importance of the low fat aspect of her meals. Using the product’s information guide, one customer told Lalany the meals were worth eight credits in the Weight Watchers system.
All three meals, Teriyaki Bison, Spice Island Bison and Malaysian Curried Bison, have been given the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Health Check stamp because they contain less than six grams of fat and are only 500 calories for the complete rice, meat and vegetable dish.
Customers told her they had heard bison was healthy, but now they were finally able to try it.
While working in hospitals Lalany learned about the need for healthy frozen food that could be heated quickly.
Her bison meals won a grocery industry award less than a month after being introduced to stores.
“I live and breathe this product.”
The bison meals are available at the Valleyview Buffalo Co. store in Edmonton, the Buffalo Market in Rimbey, Alta., and Save-On Foods throughout Alberta.
The stir fry type meals were a natural progression for Lalany. Once the family started butchering their bison for meat, Lalany began to use the product in all her meals, which are the same as what she is now selling.
“I knew nothing about jerky or sausage. These were the recipes we used,” she said when asked why she didn’t make another bison sausage or jerky product.
Both Gulzar and her husband, Alnoor, were born in Africa, she in Tanzania and he in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kerry Engel, a direct marketing specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said at a recent food conference that several food trends have been identified.
“According to Cuisine Canada we can expect to see an increase in the consumption of: comfort foods (meat loaf, stews, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese); ethnic dishes made from authentic ingredients; slow foods (versus fast foods); food as therapy (allowing time to connect with family); red meat (often with lesser cuts such as ribs, brisket, oxtail, lamb shanks); and regional cuisine (using fresh, indigenous products in food service),” she wrote in a recent newsletter.
Janet McGregor of Alberta Agriculture, who has worked with Lalany, said Lalany’s dishes meet several of the food trends.
“They tie in with the products grown in Alberta, they’re quick and easy to prepare and they add interesting flavours to people’s diet.”
She said Lalany worked hard to have her product meet the new trends.
“The more needs you satisfy the better chance you have of selling your product.”
The Lalany family started bison ranching in 1994, after buying two quarters of land advertised in the local Bargain Finder. They fenced the land and bought three bison with the guidance of a local producer who agreed to teach them about the hairy beasts.
That’s when their learning began.
When she was told there was a well on the farm, Lalany searched for a hole and a bucket like wells in Africa.
She didn’t know the difference between hay and straw and thought heifer was just farm lingo.
“I’d ask for a bull heifer,” said Lalany, laughing at her own inexperience.
The first time she heard a coyote howl she gathered up the children and went racing back to the house, worried they were like hyenas in Africa.
“I was so scared.”
Shortly after the three buffalo arrived she looked out into the bush pasture and saw three moose and thought the animals had changed shape.
Her father thought they’d bought a farm in the jungle with coyotes, elk, moose and bison wandering through. But a trip to the farm is now a highlight for all the family.
“For them to see the challenges on the farm through my eyes has awakened my family,” she said.
“The learning curve was very steep.”
It was also an education buying animals from an auction.
“I’d heard horror stories that if you scratch your nose you buy the animals,” said Lalany, who confessed her ignorance to Norm Moore at Moore’s Auction who helped her buy the bison.
Whenever she bought an animal during an auction, she asked Moore to repeat the price slowly so she knew what she paid for it.
Lalany wasn’t afraid to ask for help. At the auctions she would sit by farmers and ask them to think out loud and tell her what they saw.
“When you show people you want to learn – they will help. I’d go to the auction just to learn and I started to make notes on what I saw.”
With childlike enthusiasm she soaked up the information like a sponge.
“My desire to learn was so strong.”
Lalany said if she and her husband can learn about agriculture and the food industry, think about how much farmers who already know about agriculture can do.
“Here was someone who knew nothing, but had the desire to do something that brought us through.”
