On the other hand, nobody speaks ill of the pancake breakfasts that now dominate the week for many Calgarians, and that serve as something of a probe into the suburbs for the Stampede spirit. Improvised cowboy cookouts in the streets of Calgary were a feature of the Stampede’s earliest incarnations; pancakes signified resourcefulness, hardihood, simplicity. But as Calgary has evolved into a multi-ethnic capital, the concept of the “pancake breakfast” has proved unexpectedly adaptable.
The annual Ismaili Muslim breakfast was regarded as a Stampede essential since long before Calgary elected its Ismaili mayor, Naheed Nenshi. Granola types bring their own plates to the Healthy and Organic Stampede Breakfast, a highly regarded refuge for vegetarians. The Mormons do a breakfast. An animal shelter does a pet-friendly breakfast. Buddhist temples and synagogues do breakfasts. Consciously built-in “diversity” somehow just doesn’t compete with the real, uncoerced, unplanned thing.
Ismailimail 