Part V of V: Dolce - "The Edible City" Book Review + Upcoming Book Reviews

And the book comes to a close! To see all chapter reviews of The Edible City, click here.

Bert Archer kicks off the final chapter by talking about food waste. He focuses on retailers (some do a better job than others) who give food that's not suitable for sale a second life through programs like Second Harvest. Food waste is a travesty to me, but thankfully it's something we can, at least at an individual level, control - when I get groceries each week, I go with a list and know what I'm going to make, so I don't buy anything that isn't part of my recipes unless I can freeze it. It's just ridiculous that so many people go hungry, while others overbuy and end up throwing food out.

Sasha Chapman's story is particularly heartwarming, as it chronicles an Egyptian man's attempts (despite all the challenges) to plant a fig tree in his backyard in Toronto. The amount of love and dedication he has to the tree really shows how important food, especially the kind we grew up with, is to us.

In Brendan Cormier's piece, a strategy for Toronto to have "ubiquitous food markets" is laid out. This takes the farmer's market idea a step further (think pop-up food stalls, be it one or one hundred, at key points of intersection in our city like a subway entrance). Aside from requiring the City's commitment, it also would require a cultural change on our part of going from "stock-up" shoppers who grocery shop twice a month to "top-up" shoppers who shop once or twice a week and could conveniently pick up fresh and healthy items as we go about our daily lives.

Wayne Roberts ends the book with a story every Torontonian can be proud of. For all the shortcomings the book (rightly) points out, we have a lot to be proud of about our food scene, and Wayne reminds us of that through a historical look at how Toronto "found its food groove."

And with that, The Edible City concludes on a high note. But stay tuned - I have 3 new books in my possession for review!!!
Yours in food,
-Stacey

Click here to read our reviews of the other sections (antipasti, primo, secondo and contorno) of the book!

Part IV: Contorno - "The Edible City" Book Review

And the book review continues! One more part of The Edible City (dessert, to be exact) after this course!

In the second-to-last section, Amanda Miller gives a practical guide for seasonal food planting in Toronto's urban gardens, along with instructions for basic food preservation (drying herbs, making jams, etc.) and some general tips and tricks (i.e. plant mint alone, as their roots tend to choke out other plants). She also names useful Toronto resources for local gardeners.

Wayne Reeves looks at the rise, fall and resurgence of craft beer in Toronto. Like other areas, when Prohibition hit many brewers went out of business or changed their focus (one started producing vinegar, for example). He also includes a helpful "beer style primer" to help the reader understand the differences between pale ales, wheat beer, porters, stout, etc.

Kathryn Borel, Jr.'s strange encounter with a former chef she takes home after an evening out doesn't get very sexy, but at least it yields a good recipe for mussels in cream sauce with green apple and braised fennel!

If you want to know where to find exotic ingredients in Toronto, read Kevin Connolly's piece. He points out the multicultural gems in Toronto, like Danforth Variety and Fruit Market for West-Indian ingredients (think dasheen and Scotch bonnet peppers) to Fu Yao Supermarket on Gerrard for everything Thai, including the infamous Thai basil and tough-to-find Golden Mountain Sauce.

Rea McNamara talks about Caribbean and West Indian food in Toronto with a specific focus on its roti (Hindi word for 'bread') shops. She also touches on the desire of the diaspora to cook such pivotal cultural dishes at home, but sometimes the roti shops (especially in Toronto) do it best ;)

Damian Rogers gives an inside look at the movers and shakers and business exchanges that go down at the Ontario Food Terminal where an average of 5.1 million lbs of foodstuffs PER DAY pass through (if you've ever driven west on the Gardiner Expressway coming from downtown Toronto, you've seen it but, aside from the farmer's market attached to it, it's not open to the public).

Charles Z. Levkoe and Airin Stephens talk about school meal programs that go beyond being just, well, school meal programs. The kids at George Harvey Collegiate Institute (in the diverse Keele-Eglinton area) are part of such a program, where, to quote a student, "in just one day I could be helping write a funding proposal for the food program in an English class, work outside in the [school's] gardens in Leadership, cook the food in Food and Nutrition and then write a speech in my Public Speaking class about food security." The food citizenship these programs instill in students is priceless.

Chris Hardwicke details the ongoing revival of St. Andrew's Market in the King-Spadina neighbourhood.

Chris Ramsaroop and Katie Wolk focus on discrimination and financial/legal issues migrant workers, many of whom harvest Canadians' fruits and veggies, face. Their ultimate ask is "can we achieve racial equality in the food security movement?"

Chris (and can I just note how strange it is that the last three stories in this chapter are all by someone named Chris?) Nuttall-Smith starts by reminiscing about his childhood on his dad's hobby farm, eating fresh eggs tasting deliciously like "cut grass and butter and the sun." He then turns his focus in the story to present-day rebel egg and milk production in Ontario.

That's it for this course - stay tuned for dessert!
Yours in food,
-Stacey

Click here to read our reviews of the other sections (antipasti, primo, secondo and dolce) of the book!

Part II: Primo - "The Edible City" Book Review

We're onto the next course as we munch our way through "The Edible City." Here's what the "Primo" section of the book brings us.

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Pamela Cuthbert kicks it off by asking readers to take stock of their kitchens - could you provide food for your family in an emergency? What if borders closed and the food supply was on lockdown? How would we hold up with our "delivered-just-in-time" grocery model? I agree that food security is one of those things we never think about until it presents itself as a pressing issue. Pamela outlines the importance of food security (especially among those less fortunate than us) and the work that is being done on an ongoing basis to try to keep it top-of-mind.

As if a partial answer to Pamela's story before it, Lorraine Johnson writes about urban gardening past and present - she mentions Victory Gardens for the war effort / during the Depression where food security became something the entire country focused its attention on. She also mentions the potential the city has for urban gardening, making particular note of the uproar over planting fruit trees in Ben Nobleman Park across from Eglinton W. Subway Station. I think it's a neat idea - I'm planning to make a visit in the summer to see said fruit trees.

Mary F. Williamson follows the history of the Webb family, who was well-known for their wedding cakes, their catering business, and their restaurants and bakeries. She paints a picture of lavish catered events of a bygone era, including a swanky party thrown in Toronto by the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The story even contains an old menu from one of the Webbs' catered events. Can't say I miss the aspic craze though - one of the items mentioned in the story is tongue in aspic (it's not the tongue that throws me off, it's the aspic part! I digress a bit here, but I had a Filipino dish with cow tongue at Christmas and thought it was pretty good - it's a lot softer than I figured it'd be).

Katarina Gligorijevic explores "The Toronto" - a cocktail that, oddly enough, many Torontonians have never heard of and that has no traceable connection to Toronto whatsoever!

David Alexander, executive director of the Toronto Vegetarian Association, gives a bit of insight into how far vegetarianism in Toronto has come from 1945 until now. I wasn't much into the story itself (it read like more of a promotion for the TVA) but I loved the Vegetarian Food Fair at Harbourfront last year and plan to go back again this year - despite not being a vegetarian, there was some great food there.

Ilona Burkot, Laura Burr, and Jane Lac look at how much it costs to eat healthily in Toronto, complete with a map of Toronto showing the cost of healthy food as a percentage of average income by neighbourhood. They also give some tips for saving $ at the store (buy in season, buy in bulk, etc.)

The former chef at The Stop Community Food Centre, Joshna Maharaj, explains the political and social power chefs can have while stressing the fact that affordable, yummy and healthy food should be accessible to all; having a trained chef in The Stop's kitchen really gets that message across.

Jamie Bradburn talks about bread bakeries in Toronto. I love the images of bread advertisements from 1900.

Liz Clayton talks about the specialty coffee scene in Toronto, and asks whether it's anti-nationalist to skip over Canadian icon Tim Horton's in favour of your local neighbourhood coffee bar.

Erik Rutherford talks to the city's top French chefs to find out what they think of their customers here in Toronto - are they too picky? Too quick to fall for fads? Do they properly appreciate the art of French cuisine?

Karen Hines colourfully recalls the days where food safety (and germophobia) wasn't nearly as much of a concern through her entertaining tale of her "filthy hand."

Stay tuned for more from The Edible City!

Click here to read our reviews of the other (antipasti, secondo, contorno, and dolce) of the book!

"The Edible City" Book Launch

Last night Mark and I attended The Edible City book launch hosted by Coach House Books and This is Not a Reading Series at The Gladstone Hotel. Mark will be posting a review of the book itself soon, so stay tuned! This is my quick rundown, with photos of course, of the evening.

A few of the fabulous contributors to The Edible City made up the panel (they have many other accolades and excellent works too numerous to mention here. They are the cream of the crop when it comes to the Toronto food scene - Google them!): Sarah B. Hood, Joshna Maharaj, Lorraine Johnson, Sasha Chapman and Steven Biggs. The panel was moderated by Dick Snyder, who also happens to publish CityBites magazine.

I found that children and their relationship to (and education about) food was the most common theme throughout the panel discussion and the Q&A session. Sasha noted in her child's JK/SK split class only half the kids could correctly identify an onion, and many thought it had seeds. There's definitely a need to bring food education into schools and other institutions (summer camps, etc.) - I agree totally, but I also think it's a parent's responsibility to have kids help with the little things in the kitchen. Getting hands-on helps give them a real appreciation of their food. The panelists noted kids would even eat stuff that they had picked or harvested themselves even if it was a food they usually turned their noses up at - I think that even kids who are too young to fully understand the concept of pride must still feel that special something, you know, that pride we all feel in picking an apple or digging up a potato ourselves. Garden patches on schoolyards and in public parks was another hot topic, which really ties into making these kinds of experiences and connections to food accessible for everyone.

After the panel discussion and Q&A, a cookie decorating competition started up. The super delicious sugar cookies (baked just perfectly, might I add!) were courtesy of Wanda's Pie in the Sky and I couldn't help but eat an extra one as I decorated mine with the Toronto flag for the competition!

On that note, I'll leave you all with some fun facts (courtesy of Coach House Books' site) about Toronto and the food it produce(s)/(d), along with titles the book itself almost got named:

- In 1934, a community garden on St. Clair Avenue west of Keele provided food for about 5,000 unemployed families.

- David Garcelon, the executive chef at the Fairmont Royal York, has a garden atop the fourteen-floor hotel. But it's not your typical garden: Aside from herbs, fruit and vegetables, he has six hives (that's about 300,000 bees).

- More than 16,000 Mexican and Caribbean agricultural workers come to Ontario each year. Some stay a few weeks, some stay as long as 8 months.

- The Edible City could've been named any of the following (these were all book names tossed around before they settled on The Edible City): Eat TO Live; Chowtown; Food 401 Thought; A Gastronomical Guide to Toronto; CornuTOpia.

Yours in food,

-Stacey

Click here to read our reviews of the book's sections (antipasti, primo, secondo, contorno, and dolce)