Feast: A Canadian trip from coast to coast
West Coasters chronicle a journey of food exploration, and discover they didn’t know much about our diversity of cuisine
WATERLOO REGION — Days into their five-month food trip across Canada, Lindsay Anderson and Dana VanVeller were humbled by their experiences and in awe of what they didn’t know about their homeland. The Vancouver-based women started their trek on the West Coast and within days of their journey they were enjoying smoked fish prepared by First Nations and snacking on salmon berries during a hike.
“It was quite humbling. There is so much for all of us to learn,” said Anderson, 32.
The pair spoke of the regional diversity they were immersed in by travelling coast to coast and enjoying foods in Canada’s provinces and territories.
“It often felt like we were changing countries and travelling abroad,” said VanVeller, 31.
“It was not our goal to find a definite Canadian food,” she said. “Canadian identity is made up of so many parts.”
The end result of the food trek is Feast, a cookbook featuring 114 recipes from 80 contributors as well as recipes from Anderson and VanVeller.
“It was a beast of a project,” both women said simultaneously.
“It was this beautiful chain of culinary connections across the country,” Anderson said.
The cross-country trek introduced them to dishes from across the nation: reindeer meat loaf from Yellowknife, whale blubber from Nunavut, Jiggs dinner from Newfoundland, wild boar and fig meatballs from a Regina restaurant, Arctic apple fritters in Dawson City, Yukon’s birch syrup cookies, Cape Breton Butterscotch pie and fire-roasted salmon as prepared by the Kyuquot Checleset First Nation on Spring Island on the West Coast.
Other distinct recipes include spicy yogurt cheese balls, wild mushroom toasts, roasted potatoes with duck fat and maple syrup, and pickled pumpkin.
“The whole point was to seek out stories of Canadian food,” said Anderson.
An author favourite and personal creation is Eggs Galiano, baked eggs in tomato sauce that hails from Tunisia but has been transformed into many cultures.
The recipe has emotional significance because they created it while staying at a cabin on Gulf Island of Galiano.
Some recipes are staples for Anderson and VanVeller such as hollyhock dressing that comes from the kitchen of Hollyhock, a retreat on Cortes Island on the West Coast and the East Coast Oatcakes, somewhere between a cookie and a biscuit. The recipe hails from a bakery in New Brunswick.
Anderson, originally from Prince George, and VanVeller from Sarnia, met six years ago at a music festival in Kelowna. The pair became fast friends.
The women quickly came up with a project-based idea for a road trip around Canada and documenting their food experiences on a food blog.
They would feature recipes from home cooks, farmers and bakers.
“It was a pipe dream,” said Anderson.
But the dream soon became reality. In June, 2013, the pair jumped into VanVeller’s Toyota Yaris, starting in Spring Island on the northwest of Vancouver Island, and travelled 37,000 kilometres across the nation for the next five months.
Eight months prior the women spent planning their itinerary and received many suggestions on destination places from their blog before the trip. They stayed with friends, slept in tents and sometimes in hotels.
A crowdsourcing campaign raised $10,000 and they pitched ideas to various tourism boards, receiving packages in various communities such as a tour of an organic farm in Nova Scotia.
They drove most of the way except for a train ride from Winnipeg to Churchill and a plane ride to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
The women were in Waterloo last week promoting their book with a visit to Words Worth Books and Relish Cooking Studio where some of their recipes were tried out.
For today’s column I chose the pan-fried whitefish recipe, a dish the women made after catching the fish from Great Slave Lake and using fireweed jelly from the Yukon with beet greens. I used tilapia.
Beets are in season in June and I had difficulty finding beet greens after searching in at least three grocery stores, so I substituted the greens with Swiss chard — which is a recommendation they suggest in the recipe.
Also, I substituted the crabapple jelly with apple jelly, which is readily available, after they recommended it.
The fish is light and delicate and a good accompaniment for the Swiss chard, a slightly-bitter green.