In Ottawa a few weeks back, I discovered a food trend I would dearly love to see catch on in our more fashionable urban centres. Expounding on our restaurant options for the evening, a friend of mine suggested Sweetgrass, which bills itself as an “Aboriginal Bistro.” The small room in the Byward Market area has evidently been open since 2003, but is still in such demand that trying for a weekend table without a reservation is close to useless.
Sweetgrass serves “unique seasonal menus that follow the ancient hunting and gathering traditions of North and South America’s many First Nation People.” It is owned and operated by Phoebe and Warren Sutherland: Phoebe is Cree and grew up near Mistassini Lake in Quebec; Warren, her husband and partner, was born and raised in Jamaica. Both were trained at the New England Culinary Institute, and the restaurant’s menu looks, while tasty, a touch heavy on gimmickry (the “Grilled Tatonka,” a 10-oz. bison rib-eye, conjures unwelcome images of Kevin Costner wearing a handlebar moustache, humpbacked, and rooting in the dirt like a senile truffle pig). On the other hand, dishes like Awazibi Maple–glazed roasted wild boar, elk dumplings, and sustainably caught pickerel served with fingerling potatoes and “christophes mushrooms” raise a tantalizing possibility: the popularization of cuisine inspired by the food of Canada’s First Nations peoples. (more…)
Last Sunday was Pizzageddon. This doesn’t mean that cheese and tomato sauce fell from the sky in dollops to crush government buildings and places of worship and all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut buffets, signaling the displeasure of some vengeful Neapolitan god — there is nothing religious about Pizzageddon, or at least not theistic. Rather, Pizzageddon is the ultimate pizza cook-off, at which different teams try to assemble the most delicious pie, and a winner is chosen by secret ballot. It takes place in my kitchen, and the rule this time around — for there have been many Pizzageddons — was that my wife (an ace baker) would supply the homemade dough, but the teams were responsible for all toppings, including sauce.
Pizzageddon is part of a larger custom in my family, which we have given the more modest name of Pizza Sundays, and which simply involves us making pizza, from scratch, every Sunday evening. We often make the immodest joke that Pizza Sundays is the greatest tradition in the history of the universe, and although that may be pushing it a little, it gives our friends and us something to look forward to every week, a good excuse to gather, talk about food, and share a reliably delicious meal.
The Slow Food movement has emphasized the value of taking time to appreciate your food, and to learn what its proponents call “taste education,” which aims “to retrain the senses and sharpen perception” in order to better understand the role food plays in society. The focus is on acknowledging the links between food, place, and culture, with a balance between pleasure and knowledge — of local cuisines, biodiversity, and food’s connection to the environment — and on reintroducing an idea of eating that provides a counterpoint to the mass production, instant gratification, and fat-and-sodium obsession that fuels the fast food industry. One key ingredient in the recipe for conscious eating, however, is much simpler and more intuitive than drawing a flow chart to assess the impact your Thai beef salad has on global ecosystems. It has to do with cooking, and eating, as a ritual. (more…)
What does it mean to provide good service? The definition can change depending on the situation; you don’t go into a meal at Puck N’ Wings with the same expectations you might have for an evening at a Mark McEwan restaurant. Increasingly, though, the typical relationship between customer and establishment, in which meeting the needs of the former is the core of a good business strategy for the latter, is being challenged. These days, it’s becoming trendy for restaurants to tell patrons how it is, and even to purport to school them in certain culinary matters. In this model, it is the expert, as represented by the business, that is always right, and the responsibility of customers to recognize their good fortune at being able to dine someplace sophisticated enough to demand respect.
In Toronto, the most notorious example of this is the Italian restaurant chain, Terroni, which is infamous among food lovers for taking a hard line on condiments, substitutions, and so on. At Terroni, if I want Parmesan cheese on my pasta but the combo doesn’t meet the restaurant’s standards of authenticity, my server will outright refuse me the cheese. The reasoning for their stance is outlined on the restaurant’s website, which states: “There’s a great satisfaction in preparing something that’s been prepared the same way for a hundred years. We respect tradition and work hard to prepare our food as authentically as we can.” (Apparently they don’t like substitutions in matters of vocabulary, either.) In other words, this is the way they do it in Southern Italy, and if you don’t like it, try Pizza Pizza.
Variations on the theme can be found throughout the city. At Pizzeria Libretto, a much-lauded joint on the bustling Ossington strip, it’s a point of pride to be the only place in town that has been certified by the Vera Pizza Napoletana, a.k.a. the pizza police. Libretto’s website (which actually has an “Ideology” section) echoes Terroni’s:
“Libretto aims to be loyal to what real pizza is, invented in Naples using local natural ingredients, cooked in a wood fired oven at extremely high heat to achieve a charred, blistered crust…Pizzeria Libretto makes the only certified Vera Pizza Napoletana in Toronto, using the guidelines set out by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association and as set out by the Italian Government and the European Union. This strong statement is backed by our commitment to specifically selected high quality ingredients, made in a traditional manner with old world equipment.”
Again, the gist is clear: the average guest obviously doesn’t know what real pizza is, so we’re telling them, and they should be thankful to us for operating at such an exacting standard. (more…)
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Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
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