Slow down and enjoy ‘Food Island’
Chefs, artisans, farmers and fishermen brought P.E.I. to culinary tourism forefront
FORTUNE BAY, P.E.I.— Driving through Prince Edward Island, passing seemingly never-ending stretches of farmland, ocean bays dotted with fishing boats and herds of grazing cows, it’s clear — this is an island serious about producing food.
“We’re a great big, giant, green farm, floating in the deep blue sea, surrounded by white sandy beaches and filled with authentic food stories,” says Michael Smith, one of Canada’s most celebrated chefs, proprietor and chef at the Island’s Inn at Bay Fortune and its FireWorks dining experience, and, as some call him, the island’s food ambassador. “That’s what Prince Edward Island is, it’s who we are.”
Smith is part of a movement of chefs, artisans, farmers and fishermen who have brought P.E.I. to the forefront of culinary tourism through a focus on simple, honest, wholesome food, fresh produce and friendly service.
Food Island, as it’s now dubbed, is a place where people are urged to slow down, relax, take a walk on the red dirt roads and savour some truly fantastic food, borne from a community of dedicated farmers.
Some of the premier authorities in haute cuisine are taking notice of this quiet, wholesome foodie’s paradise, with the world’s renowned Zagat guide dubbing P.E.I. one of the world’s best foodie getaways in 2012.
Another one of the culinary artisans responsible for the island’s burgeoning reputation as a gastronomical paradise is chef Jeff McCourt, the owner and lead cheesemaker at Glasgow Glen Farm.
McCourt’s farm, nestled in the lush green rolling hills of New Glasgow, is the oldest artisanal cheese producer on the island and its tasting room is bustling with visitors when we visit on a Friday afternoon. McCourt offers free samples of a variety of his best Goudas from Tuesday to Saturday.
Once McCourt gives us a sample of the farm’s most popular cheese, the classic Gouda, the crowds are un- surprising. The cheese is smooth as silk, with a slight nuttiness, and is so fresh it tastes as if it was made out of milk taken straight from the healthiest, happiest cow on the island.
When we ask about McCourt’s secret behind his fantastic cheese, he doesn’t attribute a specialized technique or secret ingredient, but rather, the island itself.
“We’re on P.E.I., it’s the milk, it’s the terroir,” he says from the farm’s expansive cheese cave, where rows and rows of Gouda wheels age for a mini- mum of two months before being served. “The cows eat the grass, the grass is full of the salt air, it all works together to make great-quality milk, which makes great-quality cheese.”
McCourt keeps it simple and let’s this spirit and flavour of the island shine through all of his cheeses. And people are eating it up. Glasgow Glen’s Goudas are scooped by hand and showcased on pizzas and fresh breads made in the farm’s wood burning oven, which were so popular last summer McCourt and his team nearly ran out of cheese.
“It’s all about the local, you have to celebrate what you have,” McCourt says. “People come to P.E.I. and want to taste P.E.I. They want mussels, lobster, chowder and cheese.”
Smith and his team at FireWorks appeal to this same desire for a feeling of place, community and finding a piece of true P.E.I.
FireWorks (recently named third of Canada’s top10 new restaurants by Air Canada enRoute magazine) hosts its Feast dinners every night for 64 guests, who are immersed in a six-course, interactive dining experience that takes them around the Inn at Bay Fortune’s farm and gardens.
Everything guests eat is either grown on site or sourced from local vendors on the island. Even the duck the team is smoking when we visit was brined in salt water from Fortune Bay and fed a diet of island grains. If the chefs can’t find something on the island, they figure out a way to make it themselves.
The majority of what’s served at FireWorks is cooked in either an enormous wood-burning oven, or the kitchen’s seven-foot coal-burning hearth.
“It’s about great produce, salt, pepper and fire,” says Cobey Adams, Smith’s chef du cuisine, as he inspects a cast-iron pot of blueberry jelly bubbling in the hearth.
The hearth and oven are mere metres away from the harvest tables where Feast guests gather, eat and are completely involved in the process and story of their dinner.
“Our guests get out of their seats, they’re engaged, they’re part of the experience. They make their own salad dressing, we have all kinds of ceremonies,” Smith says excitedly. “Even the way we serve our sausage in the herb garden, they choose the herb they want to roll it in, and get the experience of the herb garden, they’re tasting something they can see growing right there.”
Adams takes us on a tour of the farm as Smith returns to prep for the evening’s guests. We pass the farm’s lush herb garden, where we stand happily snacking on sage leaves so fragrant and flavourful they’re almost a meal on their own, and then head into the fields, passing by the resident troupe of pigs, aptly named Chris P. Bacon and Hamlet, eventually stopping to snack on plump cherry tomatoes straight off the farm’s vines.
“We are Canada’s food island,” Smith says before we depart. “The base of it, the thing that makes it work . . . we are legitimately, authentically and have been forever, a place that produces food. We aren’t trying to put that on or add that, that’s us. That’s what we do.” Lauren Miller was hosted by Tourism P.E.I. and its partners, which didn’t review or approve this story.