Montreal to Nova Scotia: Canada's Slow Revolution Under Way

posted by Geoff Andrews at Sunday, June 13, 2010

My trip to Canada in May, the tenth country I’ve visited for Slow Food purposes, provided more confirmation that Slow Food is capable of developing a presence in places of widely different histories and food traditions. At Slow Food Nation in San Francisco in 2008 – the biggest Slow Food event held outside Italy – it was the energy of the younger participants and the political commitment to the principle that quality sustainable food should be available to all which came through to me. The USA has become crucial to the international Slow Food movement, aided by the contributions of some major food writers like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan and the vision of Alice Waters and others. The impact of films like Food.Inc has been to provide a strong political focus where the important debates over health, ecology and the economics of agribusiness have come under scrutiny. In Slow Food’s philosophy, the connection between our duties to the environment and the universal right to pleasure has become clearer. For obvious reasons, the movement in North America has probably had a stronger emphasis on environment and health questions than in Italy, with restaurants more concerned to declare the nutritional benefits of their produce, but the prospect of reconciling a marriage between ‘gastronomic pleasure’ and environmental responsibility’ has become central.

1/. Appetite for Change.

In Canada the movement has been ‘slower’ to take off. Until now, most attention seems to have been on events in Ontario and Vancouver. In Montreal, however, there is also a lively food culture which has been helped by the vibrant multicultural, bi-lingual and artistic scene. Appetite for Books in Westmount, with its terrific range of food books from around the world (and which also hosts tastings) helped organise my launch at the Victoria Market foodstore next door. They were well known to McGill-Queen’s gastronome-publicist Ryan Van Huijstee, who lives locally. They also recommended the excellent McKiernan’s for lunch, a cosy ‘lunchenette-cum-wine bar’ where I enjoyed an excellent, seasonal house salad. McKiernan’s, which originates from the same family as Joe Beef’s Oyster Bar, is a short walk from the old Atwater market, then overflowing with fruit and flowers

The talk was followed by a lively discussion, enhanced by the contributions of Nasser Boumenna, an organic farmer whose Arlington Gardens farm is just outside the city and David Szanto of Slow Food Montreal (and one of the early graduates of the University of Gastronomic Sciences). David, together with Melissa Bull, the editor of the health magazine Montreal en Sante, told me more about the politics of food in Montreal over a very convivial post- talk beer.

2/ Reconsidering the Lobster

Arriving in Cape Breton after a 26 minute flight from Halifax (and a rather longer one from Montreal) the great Canadian hospitality continued. I was there to give a talk at Cape Breton University and was looked after by Richard and Mary Keshen both attached to the university. Together over the next few days we shared some great food and philosophical discussion. On the first evening Richard and Mary took me to the recently opened Black Spoon Bistro in Sydney, where I enjoyed an excellent lobster penne. The lobster season was just getting under way and would be a theme of the next few days; the price of lobster, the conditions of lobster fisherfolk, the effects of the mass ‘consumption’ of lobster (the McLobster had made an unwelcome appearance on the island) and whether this once ‘poor man’s food’ for Cape Bretons was going to become an expensive ‘luxury’ item again.

One of the most interesting discussions was over whether there was a humane way of cooking lobster. In 2004 the late author David Foster Wallace, after visiting the Maine Lobster festival, questioned in an article in Gourmet magazine whether it was ‘all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?’ This was another way of looking at the pleasure v pain dichotomy which has occupied philosophers since Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism. Over supper in the centre of Sydney, at Ellie’s fine apartment, this question was debated by Richard (an Oxford contemporary of, and influence on, Peter Singer), and George Smith, a Liverpudlian chef, who went to the same art school as John Lennon, but who now, a long way from home, has established with his wife Cora-Lee, a unique ‘pay what you can’ restaurant founded on Slow Food principles. The philosophical discussion continued over a stupendous meal: a tribute both to George’s artistic culinary imagination and good humour.

A key aspect of Slow Food’s status as an international movement is the effective network it provides for meetings and exchanges between its very varied members and supporters. This is at its strongest at gatherings like the biennial Terra Madre where producers from across the world get to meet activists and informed consumers but is also evident across the network of local groups – appropriately called ‘convivia’ in the movement’s distinctive language. In addition to Slow Food activists like Cora-Lee, my talk enabled me to meet Earlene Busch, a Terra Madre recommended restaurateur whose Chanterelle Country Inn on the John Cabot trail (an area of staggering natural beauty) combines wonderful seasonal food with strong environmental principles; both the main building and adjacent cottages were built on sustainable principles from recycled materials. Crab bisque and lobster was on the menu for another Slow Food lunch, with a bit more philosophy in a wonderful setting. Earlene’s neighbour Dennis Laffan, from whom she gets much of her organic vegetables, was also president of the Cape Breton Organic Beekeepers Cooperative and explained to me why Cape Breton honey was special; because it is the only place in the world free of the Varroa mite which is continuing to ruin many hives in North America and elsewhere.

3/ Eco-Gastronomy Starts Here

My planned return to London was from Halifax , where the Canada Slow Food national meeting had been held the week before. This gave me a few hours at the waterfront. Not knowing anything about the local food scene, by a bit of luck, and a suggestion from a local hotelier, I came across Lil Macpherson’s The Wooden Monkey. This was a really great place for a long Sunday lunch of local seafood. Not only was the seasonal food excellent, the eco-gastronomic principles shone through. It was ‘slow’ in the best sense – a sustainable local place for artists to meet and talk about the important things in life

It made the decision to pass on the vacuum packed lobster at Halifax Airport that much easier.