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Festival Celebrates Local Fruit
By Noelle Munaretto
A first crop of Ontario Strawberries, picked hours before.
Last Thursday the First Fruits of Spring Festival got off to an exciting start at Toronto food shop, Viva Tastings. Foodies, farmers and friends gathered together to celebrate all things strawberry. The festival highlights a month-long campaign to encourage people to support Ontario strawberry farmers, and particularly those who have strawberry farms around the Greenbelt.
Specific strawberry themed events will be taking place across the city to show off this dazzling red fruit and to raise awareness about the importance of buying our province's produce. Then, from June 23 to the 29, chefs from over 25 Toronto restaurants are participating in the project by featuring strawberries from a specific farm in their dishes. Some of these participants include George, Pangea, Canoe, the Il Fornello chain of restuarants (who are committed to using locally courced ingredients under Excecutive Chef Owen Stienberg), Cowbell and Langdon Hall.
J. Charles Grieco, the chair of the Ontario Hostelry Institute, played MC for the afternoon while guests sipped some of chef and shop-owner Karen Viva-Haynes' blushing strawberry cocktails. Next, the Ontario Minister of Agriculture, The Honourable Leona Dombrowsky took to the microphone to describe why the Fruits of Spring Festival is of such importance to the city. "We want people to know that good things grow in Ontario," said Dombrowsky. "Everyone should be looking for locally grown food." She also added that events like these "strengthen the ties between us and the people who produce our food."
Dombrowsky hailed Ontario strawberry farmers for their participation in the festival. "These people are committed to quality and providing the best for people who consume their foods," she said. "Congratulations for the very good work that you have underway."
One of the farmers in attendance was Paul Brooks from Brooks Farms in Mount Albert, Ontario. Dressed in a vibrant orange zip-up and bright green shirt, Brooks beamed as he spoke passionately about the festival. "It's great to see [farmers] promoted in the public life," he said.
Others on hand to give a quick speech included Burkhard Mausberg, President of the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, Chef Steinberg and Paul DeCampo from Slow Food Toronto. "We want to be co-producers along with farmers and producers…and when we enter into a mutual relationship everybody wins," said DeCampo, who also thanked Arlene Stein, head of events and catering at U of T's Hart House for putting the afternoon together and to the crew at Viva Tastings for creating savoury strawberry nibblies.
Fun Strawberry Facts:
- The name ‘strawberry' reportedly derives from the nineteenth century practice of packing straw around the base of the delicate berry plant to protect its ripening fruit. Legend also has it that the freshly picked berries were transported on beds of straw.
- Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside instead of the inside
- Strawberries are members of the rose family
- Strawberries are the first of all the fruits to ripen in spring
- Madame Tallien, a member of Napoleon's court, used to bathe in the juice of fresh strawberries
- Each strawberry has around 200 seeds
- A museum in Belgium is dedicated to strawberries
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