FARM FRESH IN CALGARY

By CINDA CHAVICH

When the call came recently to create a second 100-mile dinner – a meal for four consisting of nothing but foods grown within a 100-mile radius of Calgary – I felt rather smug.

Compared to the similar exercise I had been through in March, this would be a walk in the proverbial parkland. Mid-August, and the living – and pickings – are pretty easy, even here on the dry, windy prairie. Just head down to one of the many local farm markets, held almost every day of the week somewhere in the city during the peak harvest months, and hunt and gather, then cook.

Which is exactly what I did. Instead of struggling to locate ingredients for a particular dish, I did what the best chef’s do - I let the produce dictate my menu.

Which is so logical at this time of year. Who wouldn’t want to sit down to a plate of new potatoes and baby beets doused in butter and fresh dill, a juicy steak with tender summer squash from the grill, and a rustic shortcake of fresh berries and thick farm cream?

Summer is the time of year for uncomplicated, casual dining and simplicity is the key to enjoying the flavours of fresh food. So I took the less-is-more mantra to heart, devising a backyard barbecue menu based on strictly seasonal stuff.

We started with bison meatballs, shot with juniper and Saskatoon berries (inspired by traditional pemmican) and skewers of local artisan cheese, organic yellow cherry tomatoes and basil. The salad course was a gazpacho-style mélange of colorful tomatoes, baby cucumbers and crispy croutons, made with Prairie Mill’s sourdough, a local bakery where grains are ground on site.

To insure their provenance, I chose steaks from Hoven Farms, a producer of organic and grass-fed beef near Eckville. At the Crossroads Market, where several local Hutterite colonies haul in their fresh vegetables every week, I bought ears of fresh corn, big purple onions, miniature field cucumbers and a knob of fiery fresh horseradish to create a compound butter to melt over the grilled steak.

At the Calgary Farmer’s Market, the Innisfail Growers – a co-operative of central Alberta vegetable farmers – were doing a brisk business selling freshly-scrubbed new potatoes, tiny carrots and summer squash, even baby artichokes. I found ground bison, organic local eggs, and thick Vital Green organic cream from Sunworks, another farm marketing local products from a variety of growers, and a chunk of my favourite artisan Sylvan Star Gouda Cheese. I scored a colourful collection of tomatoes from several greenhouse growers, and bought saskatoon berries from Pearson’s Berry Farm and tiny strawberries from Nobleford’s Berry Garden to make my dessert.

From my own organic plot, I picked fresh herbs like mint, thyme, chives and oregano, cut yellow patty pan squash from the leafy vines to grill, dug a couple of hills of heirloom fingerling potatoes, and pulled some tiny purple and striped chiogga beets. There was also lots of lettuce, from romaine to red leaf, and multi-coloured rainbow chard.

It was almost too much choice.

That said, with the way our food system is set up – relying on imports from around the world even with the best local produce is hanging heavy on the seasonal vine – it can still be rather challenging to put together a dinner with nothing but the most local of local products.

Some key components to modern meals – like imported spices, balsamic vinegar, olive oil – just can’t be produced here. There’s no supply of citrus zest or seafood, tree fruit or wine, at least not in the conventional sense. While I did buy a raspberry dessert wine from Field Stone Fruit Wines, Alberta’s first fruit winery, our cocktails were based on Alberta-made rye and vodka (although, I must confess, an Okanagan Meritage from Sumac Ridge was spirited from the cellar after the photographer was gone).

Like my last 100-mile dinner, I simply stuck my head in the sand and used salt and pepper while I cooked. We do have a salt industry in Alberta, but most of that becomes road salt or salt licks for cattle, and it’s impossible to pin the salt industry down about where, exactly, the stuff in every shaker is mined. With seasonal herbs in the garden, flavouring food wasn’t a huge issue but, except for the sorrel bolting in the August heat, I was still out of luck on the acidity side, with no citrus juice, vinegar or white wine to splash into a dressing or marinade.

Even milk, beef, grains, canola oil and sugar – all commercially produced here – are part of a mega-commodity system, gathered from various farms across the prairies, combined, processed, packaged and shipped. It’s impossible to guarantee that any of this stuff comes from the farm down the road, unless you get it directly to the farm down the road.

Of course, this makes the hunting and gathering pretty specific to artisan producers, farm marketers and the like, since our supermarkets don’t sell much from local farms.

Calgary’s major food retailers are focused nearly exclusively on imports from Washington and California, even in the height of summer, when growers in B.C. and Alberta have truckloads of fresher and better tasting locally- grown food to sell. Although I was happy see some local Taber corn, organic flour, and Alberta greenhouse vegetables at my neighborhood Calgary Co-op store, it’s the exception. Even in August, the carrots, lettuce and potatoes were imports. The big produce buyers say it’s all about economy of scale, supplies and price, but who factors in the hedonist value of flavour, the social cost to local farmers or the environmental impact of such “cheap” food?

This is the kind of discussion that the 100-mile dinner concept brings to my table, while we sip fresh mint and whisky cocktails and vodka currant coolers, and slap our organic steaks on the grill. My guests, Angela Jakobs and Tim White, are gardeners, too, and concerned about the heavy environmental footprint we leave when our food travels around the world to our plates.

It’s also worrisome to contemplate how non-self sufficient Canadians have become when it comes to our food supply. While we can grow almost anything in Alberta – save the luscious peaches and other B.C. tree fruit I had to pass by at the market stands – we no longer do. Few people, especially in the city, take the time to plant a garden and nurture their own vegetables through the dry prairie summer. Fewer still know how good this kind of fresh-picked food tastes.

Even on the farm, how many families still raise the mixed menagerie of livestock – from laying hens and milk cows to chickens and pigs – that kept their parents’ and grandparents’ larders filled?

I have my own plot of vegetables at our cabin in the country – mainly to keep me in the kind of heirloom fingerling and blue potatoes, chiogga beets and other exotic (and more flavorful) varieties that my cook’s palate desires. Even with my weekend-only visits, water supplied solely by Mother Nature, and the gourmet appetites of marauding moose, we still have enough lettuce, French radishes, peas, raspberries, chives and herbs to enjoy – along with edible nasturtiums and big sunflowers to brighten the table. This bounty, despite my benign neglect, is proof that even Alberta’s often severe climate can produce delicious food.

So it’s a little disheartening to go shopping in mid-August, to find most supermarkets devoid of any local (or even Canadian) fruits and vegetables, while farmer’s markets are brimming with produce from our ever-shrinking growing regions, and good agricultural land is taken up by commodity crops and urban sprawl.

With the ongoing reality of world-wide plots and pandemics, there’s never been a better time to think about reconnecting to the local soil, to learn how to again feed ourselves with food that’s grown close to home. And as any good chef knows, it’s also the simplest way to put the most delicious food on the plate.

THE MENU

APERITIFS

MOUNTAIN MINT JULEPS

KAYBEN BLACK CURRANT AND VODKA COOLERS

PEMMICAN MEATBALLS IN BLACK CURRANT GLAZE

SYLVAN STAR GOUDA, YELLOW CHERRY TOMATO AND PURPLE BASIL SKEWERS

HOTCHKISS AND GULL VALLEY TOMATO GAZPACHO SALAD WITH COLONY CUKES AND PRAIRIE MILL CROUTONS

WHISKEY-MARINATED HOVEN FARMS ORGANIC TOP SIRLOIN STEAK WITH FRESH HORSERADISH BUTTER

HEIRLOOM YELLOW AND ROSE FINGERLING POTATOES WITH VITAL GREEN BUTTER AND CHOPPED DILL

GRILLED INNISFAIL SUMMER SQUASH

BABY CHIOGGA AND PURPLE BEETS

WILD BERRY SHORTCAKE WITH VITAL GREEN FARMS CRÈME FRAICHE

Click here for recipes...

WHAT IT COST:

I saved some money pulling local staples like Highwood Crossing cold pressed canola oil and pastry flour, Kayben black currant syrup and Pearson’s jams from my own pantry. While local, organic and artisan products come with a premium price tag, many fresh foods are a bargain during the high harvest season. Specialty vegetables like heirloom fingerling potatoes, patty pan squash and baby chiogga beets can carry a premium price tag, but these delicacies were “free” from my own garden:

Vital Green Farms organic heavy, 50% M.F. cream ($3.75/250 ml), sour cream ($3.49/250 ml)

Sylvan Star Gouda cheese, $7.14 ($33.70/kg)

Hoven Farms Certified Organic Beef sirloin steak: 4 @ $21.85 ($29.76/kg)

Pearson’s Berry Farm saskatoons, $15

Gull Valley Greenhouse assorted vegetables (assorted tomatoes, basil, chili peppers), $15

Sunworks Farm ground bison: $5.45 (1 pound)

Innisfail Growers new potatoes, zucchini, dill and baby artichokes: $14.50

Hutterite Colony peas, red onions, horseradish: $10

Taber corn (Co-op) 6/1.99

Foothills Creamery unsalted butter, $5.99

Sun Prairie organic flour, $4.99

C&J large organic eggs, $4.50/dozen

Brassica Mustard, $10.95/250 ml

Prairie Mill Sourdough Bread, $4.50

Lettuce Live purple basil, 2.99

Alberta Springs Rye Whisky, $25.99

Alberta Pure Vodka, 11.63 (375 mL)

Fieldstone Fruit Winery raspberry dessert wine, $31.99

Farm Market cherry tomatoes, Italian parsley, cucumbers ($7)

Calgary Co-op (greenhouse baby English cucumbers, Foothills Creamery butter, local pearl onions, sugar), $11.88

TOTAL: $220.58

(this story appeared in the National Post newspaper - fall 2006)

©Cinda Chavich

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