Last month I was a guest at the Slow Food Banchetto hosted by University of Toronto’s Hart House where the founder of Slow Food, Carlo Petrini, spoke. In his address to the gathering he said something that has resonated with me ever since: the very first instinct of a newborn is to suckle. We emerge with food on our minds.
Food has always been a big part of my life although I did not pursue learning to cook until I was well into my 30s. My mother is a great cook but never pushed me to learn. I didn’t realize until much later that I had in actuality learned a lot from her simply through observation. All she asked of me was to help in the simple tasks of preparation and because she was always cooking something, I was in the kitchen a lot. Even more importantly the result of all her care and cooking was that the entire family sat down to table every morning and evening.
Mom had a good repertoire of simple, nutritious recipes, only later experimenting, with great success I might add, in gourmet style food when entertaining. Growing up we would have cream of wheat for breakfast in the winter and fresh fruit with cereal in the summer, lovely pork chops cooked to perfection with scalloped potatoes, Nana Keegan’s stew, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding every Sunday, hot milk cake, homemade soup, spaghetti with meatballs, macaroni and cheese, salad and steak, fresh green beans, carrots and turnips, roast chicken, and pork roast with the chine bone roasting along side as a treat for us kids to name only some. She made applesauce that was also used to produce her awesome applesauce cake that I can almost taste when I think about it now. Brownies and banana bread, layer cakes (chocolate with chocolate icing of course), Christmas shortbread and my father’s favourite sweet mince tarts, flaky crusted apple and lemon pies, Nana’s plum pudding and Mom’s sweet vanilla white sauce, and apple dumplings! The homey, enticing aroma of my mother’s cooking always filled the house, our bellies and our hearts with its goodness and her love.
I thought everyone ate like we did, but when I would be invited to eat at some friend or others house, I discovered all too often that out-of-the-box prepared food was the norm. On one memorable occasion I was dumbfounded to find out that mashed potatoes could come from a pile of what appeared to me to be dried bits of paper! I have yet to understand why it’s easier to buy prepared food. What can be much easier than boiling potatoes and mashing them with lovely sweet butter and fresh milk?
Food is a formidable key to memory. Just a wisp of a thought of a particular food or dish can take me to the exact moment of experience, remembering conversations and emotions and the faces of those with whom it was shared. The tantalizing aroma of apple pie cooling on the counter and roast beef in the oven will always conjure fond memories of family Sunday dinners full of raucous laughter and conversation. In the early 70s we would celebrate New Year’s Day at Montreal’s Restaurant Helene de Champlain where I experienced my first introduction to fine dining. Escargots and Chateaubriand forever place me there.
Later food became associated with dinner parties, friends and wine. When not enjoying the culinary skills of the more talented of our set, we would dine out in some of Montreal’s wonderful restaurants. Soupe a l’oignon at Les Petits Halles or Les Halles for the ultimate traditional French dining, Le Paris for steak aux poivres, local Quebec cuisine at Chez la Mere Michel, oysters and salmon with Chablis in Vieux Montreal. I’ll never forget breakfast blintzes at Beauty’s or Dunn’s famous mile high strawberry cheesecake usually consumed after clubbing until 3:00 in the morning. Saturday afternoons we could often be found strolling St. Laurent, stopping at Schwartzes for smoked meat or Welensky’s famous deli sandwiches or bagels from St. Viateur hot out of the oven. Of course we would finally end up in a sidewalk café sipping espresso or cappuccino, perhaps indulging in an icy cold pitcher of sangria as we partook in Montreal’s favourite activity of people watching.
All this leads me to relate how I eventually learned to cook. When I relocated to Toronto in the early 80s money was scarce and with new friends not yet made, was forced to dust off the cookbooks my mother had given me if I wanted to eat well. On my first attempt at a somewhat gourmet chicken dish that called for ingredients I had never used before such as wine, shallots, cream, and tarragon, I was pleasantly surprised with my success. It was great!
Was it possible that I could produce food that was actually edible and really good? The answer was a resounding yes. From then on cooking became a hobby that eventually evolved into a passion. The process of preparing food became my preferred method of relaxing after work with the accompanying satisfaction of dining on what I made. The pleasure of food shopping, particularly Saturday mornings’ roaming Kensington and St. Lawrence Markets, remains one of my favourite pastimes that now includes the plethora of farmers’ markets that have popped up all over Toronto. Even window food shopping is fun for me and is a panacea, when I’m feeling low and the world seems a very difficult place, that reconnects me to life again. I could go on forever about the cheerful hustle and bustle of activity, the colourful displays of vegetables, spices, seafood, baked goods, or the often times more colourful characters that inhabit markets, the familiar favourites combined with un-tasted delights found and yet to be found, and so much more!
At the age of 42 I decided to become a chef. I enrolled at Toronto’s George Brown College Chef School where the adventure began that would take me into a completely different life. Italian cuisine had become the gold standard for me and in my second year was accepted into the Italian Culinary Program under the direction of Chef Ivano Zambotti. The most exciting aspect for me was that we would travel to Italy to work a restaurant stage and study at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners (ICIF). I was to become one of the oldest apprentices in Italy, but that’s another story!
Although I have a hunger and fascination for many other diverse cuisines, Italian cooking remains my standard. It is a cuisine of elegant simplicity, true clean flavours and attention to detail in preparation and presentation. Italy taught me the importance of terroir in the production of food; how the very air and its currents can have a profound effect on taste and texture. Italian cuisine illustrates and celebrates the importance of tradition in combination with a respect for the land and in supporting regional producers. This country astounded me with its many sagre the ubiquitous food, wine and culture festivals found nation wide. Italy often defines itself by its food and cuisine, deeply impressing upon me the importance of tradition: learn the syllabus and only then comes innovation.
Eating was always important to me, but cooking became a passion and like most chefs I cook for people because of the pleasure it enables me to give and the reciprocity of that pleasure. Food is history, follow its path and you follow human kind’s trajectory through time. Food is culture in all its edible glory and sometimes its downfall. Food is love, family, friends, joy and pain. Food is life.