MAKING THE 100-MILE MEAL, PRAIRIE STYLE

By CINDA CHAVICH

click here to read my 100-mile recipes...

(Calgary, AB) – I’ve just returned from the market and I would kill for a local onion.

The simple allium – so universally grown and vital to every dish – has alluded me again. There are white onions from Mexico, Walla Wallas from Washington, garlicky shallots from who knows where – but a plain yellow onion from Alberta in March? No way.

When the challenge to create a100-mile dinner came my way, I thought it would be a cinch. Sure, we suffer from a dearth of fresh fish and good tree fruit here, but there’s a bounty of meat, root vegetables, grains, dairy products and even sugar from sugar beets in Alberta – the backbone of every peasant cuisine in the world.

I accepted the assignment and was soon riffing on the menu possibilities, imagining tiny bison and saskatoon berry patties perched on miniature baking powder biscuits, wild mushroom-stuffed beef tenderloin with prairie bean cassoulet, or lamb shank osso buco with whole groat barley risotto, wild berry crème brulée or pumpkin semifreddo. With the bounty of fresh prairie foods, the hardest part about this 100-mile dinner might be setting the menu.

At least it was until I set out in March to shop.

As I shuttled between farmer’s markets, delis, health food stores, cheese shops, gourmet grocers and supermarkets, it began too look like the 100-mile dinner might soon become the 500-mile dinner - in reference to the many kilometres I was putting on my car, criss-crossing the city in search of something I could guarantee was truly local.

Were the black and white beans in the bins from southern Alberta or Texas? No one could say. Wild mushrooms, squash and pumpkins were all imports from B.C. or Washington. Even the frozen saskatoon berries at the farmer’s market were shipped in from Manitoba due to 2005 floods in the Alberta orchards.

Local products I often buy  - like fresh Spolumbo’s sausages or Callebaut chocolates – aren’t really local, in the 100-mile sense, because they rely on imported ingredients. And unless you’re buying bread from someone who grinds locally-sourced wheat and creates their own sourdough starter, you can’t really say it’s truly local. Even Alberta beef is suspect, unless it’s purchased from a specific ranch, since anything that’s processed or packaged here can be labeled an Alberta product.

After a day of foraging, I returned home despondent.

I scooped one of the last anemic cabbages from a local farm, along with some fat parsnips, carrots beginning to wither and a few rutabagas, trimmed to half their original size. I nearly leapt for joy for the chance to slap down five bucks for four small heads of garlic. I bought a bag of beets and some organic whole wheat pastry flour from Highwood Crossing. I greedily snatched up a bag of red potatoes from local Poplar Bluff farms at the natural food store, found some yellow Alberta fingerlings and I was thrilled to discover cold-smoked trout from Cunningham’s in Pincher Creek. The local organic creamery had butter and thick cream, and there were a few good Alberta cheeses from Sylvan Star near Red Deer.

But where are the local onions – to caramelize for my favorite white bean puree and flavour my stocks and sauces?

“Nope, no onions,” one farmer after another shrugged. “Too much rain.”

While my editor offers a minor dispensation for seasonings like salt and pepper, it’s soon obvious that flavoring this meal will be challenging. There are no local dried herbs to buy and it’s too early in the season to find thyme or chives, basil or rosemary in the garden. Acidity is an issue, too. I have no wine to splash into a sauce, no lemon juice or vinegar to lift a salad dressing, never mind the usual enhancements like soy sauce, chili paste, olive oil, pesto, wasabi or mayonnaise.

I spend weeks stewing over the menu and calling every chef and farmer I know, searching like some deranged addict for an onion fix.

While my contacts are sympathetic and helpful, some of them know far too much. Scott Pohorelic, the chef who specializes in fine regional cuisine at River Café, puts the kibosh on my appetizer, pointing out that the pricey trout I purchased may be smoked in Alberta but the fish is farmed in Saskatchewan. Still, he helps me source an organic beef tenderloin we can guarantee was raised nearby, and adds my request for lettuces, rainbow chard and basil to his weekly local order.

A trip to the Calgary farmer’s market a few days before our dinner in early April unearths a plethora of produce from the greenhouse growers at Gull Lake. I happily haul home four kinds of tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, bell and hot chili peppers, and even eggplant.

I can use the saskatoons in my freezer, picked last summer in Central Alberta, and I am ready to beg and borrow anything local I can find. My friend Paul Rogalski, proprietor and chef at the esteemed Rouge restaurant, opens his pantry and offers dried herbs like sage, savoury and chamomile for tea from his big kitchen garden.

And I hit more pay dirt in Paul’s cellar. There’s a big box of Alberta onions which he graciously shares. (Ironically, the next day I also spy a bag of onions from Gouw Quality Onions of Taber, Alberta, at the Family Foods store in my neighborhood – so it is possible to buy locally at some smaller supermarkets.)

Making the dinner is as complicated and labour intensive as foraging the ingredients, and I begin to feel a new bond with those ancestors who saved every scrap for soup and toiled continuously to put food on the table.  To guarantee 100-mile provenance, everything from the crackers to serve with the appetizers, to the crème fraiche for dessert, and the stocks for soups and sauces, are made from scratch.

Without wine or vinegar, my dinner is missing some vital notes but is still a success. We nosh on local cheeses, and spreads like white bean slather with goat cheese and eggplant caviar. The succulent beef tenderloin is roasted rare, thickly sliced and served with a whisky reduction, sautéed mushroom ragout, green beans and a rustic mash of yellow fingerling potatoes, parsnips and cabbage. The salad of greenhouse baby romaine with orange and yellow tomatoes, basil and chives, is drizzled some nutty cold-pressed canola oil but it’s missing the acidity that a splash of balsamic or lemon juice might have added. Even the soup – an electric fuchsia puree of potatoes and beets, garnished with a tangle of wilted chard and a few shards of salty local mizithra sheep cheese – is a hit.

Our guests, organic farmers Penny and Tony Marshall, plus River Café proprietor Sal Howell and her partner Gordon Beames, are the perfect people to share this local meal. All are intimately familiar with the challenges of local, organic food production, and all walk the sustainable talk.

Alberta beverages to match our feast are a problem. We start with black currant martinis, made with local vodka and currant juice, and pour Big Rock beer with the soup. But we all want wine, especially with the amazing grass-fed beef, and so a bottle of Robert Allen Zinfandel, made by a former Calgary chef now cooking and winemaking in California (and donated by Rogalski) is surreptitiously opened.

It’s not easy to veer off the road most traveled, and support local farmers by eating regional and seasonal food. But it’s an enlightening detour and one all of us should take from time to time, if only to discover the delightful and delicious foods, and the stalwart souls who grow and prepare them, in our midst.

THE MENU

APERITIFS

CUR-TINIS (using Alberta vodka and pure cassis – aka currant – juice from Kayben Farms in Okotoks)

BIG ROCK BEER

WHITE BEAN SLATHER WITH ROASTED GOUW ONIONS AND FAIRWINDS FARM GOAT CHEESE

GULL VALLEY ROASTED EGGPLANT, ONION AND BELL PEPPER CAVIAR

SYLVAN STAR AGED GOUDA AND 6-YEAR-OLD WHITE CHEDDAR

HOMEMADE FLAX SEED AND HIGHWOOD CROSSING MULTI-GRAIN CRACKERS

CREAMY BEET AND POPLAR BLUFF POTATO SOUP WITH WILTED HOTCHKISS CHARD AND TIRAS DAIRIES MIZITHRA

HOTCHKISS GREENS WITH MIXED GULL VALLEY TOMATO SALAD, BROXBURN BASIL AND CHIVES, HIGHWOOD CROSSING COLD-PRESSED CANOLA AND BRASSICA MUSTARD

DIAMOND WILLOW BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH ALBERTA SPRINGS WHISKY REDUCTION AND MONEY’S MUSHROOM RAGOUT

STEAMED GULL VALLEY BROAD BEANS

RUSTIC MASH OF YELLOW FINGERLING POTATOES, PARSNIPS, CABBAGE AND ONIONS (LUND’S ORGANICS AND INNISFAIL GROWERS) WITH VITAL GREEN FRESH BUTTER AND CREAM

SASKATOON AND RASPBERRY CRÈME FRAICHE TART

click here to read my 100-mile recipes...

WHAT IT COST:

Because of the difficulty of sourcing local foods at retail at this time of year, some ingredients (saskatoon berries) came from our freezers, and there were other “donations” including Highwood Crossing cold pressed canola oil and raspberries from the Marshalls, dried sage, savoury and chamomile (for tea) and local onions from chef Paul Rogalski of Rouge restaurant, house-smoked chipotle chilies and juniper berries, from chef Scott Pohorelic at River Café, Kayben Farms black currant syrup for martinis from Sal Howell. Still, local, organic and artisan products come with a premium price tag:

Vital Greens organic heavy, 50% M.F. cream ($3.75/250 ml), cream cheese ($3.85/250 ml), butter ($4.99/250 ml), yogurt ($3.29)

Fairwinds Farm Goat Dairy fresh chevre ($5.97/200g)

Diamond Willow organic, grass-fed beef tenderloin:  2 kg @ $49.05/kg = $98.10

Pearson’s Berry Farm syrup ($7)

Gull Valley Greenhouse assorted vegetables (assorted tomatoes, lettuce,  green beans, eggplant, chili peppers, $33)

Lund’s Organic Farm carrots, beets, fingerling potatoes ($13)

Innisfail Growers garlic ($5.50/6 cloves) and blue potatoes ($3.50/pound)

Poplar Bluff organic potatoes (5 lb./$5.49)

Dried white beans (Great Northern, conventional, $3.74)

Sylvan Star Gouda ($33.70/kg) and aged Farmhouse cheddar  ($34.95/kg) - $18 for a piece of each.

Highwood Crossing organic pastry flour ($9.99/

C&J large organic eggs ($4.59/dozen)

Cunningham’s Cold Smoked Trout (9.55/145 g)

Brassica Mustard ($10.95/250 ml)

Tiras Dairies Mizithra ($6.97/200 g)

Gouw’s Onions ( $0.98/3 pounds)

McKenzie’s liquid honey ($8.49/lkg)

Alberta Springs Rye Whisky ($25.99)

Big Rock Traditional beer (6 cans/$11.49)

Banff Ice vodka ($24.24)

Money’s cultivated white mushrooms ($3/pound)

(this story first appeared in The National Post newspaper – April 2006)

©Cinda Chavich

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