Alberta Bound: An Alberta Food Road Trip
This article, written by Slow Food Calgary President dee Hobsbawn-Smith, appeared in the September 2009 issue of Westworld:
The Alberta summer road trip tends to be all about speed. Cruise control on the steaming highway. Burgers from a fast-food chain wolfed down in the car. Languid holidayers on a beeline to their destination give little thought to what lies down those dusty rural side roads. But in autumn things change. The pace of life slows. Leaves brighten and tumble. Harvests begin just as the kids head back to school. It’s the ideal time to turn off the highway for an unhurried rural wander in search of the finest grown-in-Alberta fare.
I’m on one such narrow stretch of gravel 10 km south of Turner Valley. Dust gathers and hangs in the road’s hollow behind me. Straight ahead, the Cornflower Ranch fence weaves wire and light together, backdropped by the dull umber of the foothills. The blue-black face of the Rockies looms to the west. I park the car and step onto soil etched by the passage of bison, cattle, horses and time.
At the Cornflower Ranch, owners Trudy and Richard Cutfield are bucking conventional cattle-rearing wisdom in pursuit of Food Alliance certification. (The alliance is a North American non-profit that certifies farms, ranches and food handlers for sustainable agricultural and management practices.) The couple’s pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle produce leaner meat with less marbling than the standard grain-fed variety, and unlike their cloistered cousins, Cutfield cattle are not routinely given antibiotics. The result is some of the province’s finest dry-aged beef, a densely textured and richly flavoured meat available wherever there is a demand for local fare – places like the Millarville farmers’ market and Turner Valley’s slow food pit stop, Route 40 Soup Co.
Richard Cutfield’s innate scepticism led him to deviate from the norm in an industry too often guided by the credo of “We’ve always done it that way.”
“I have questioned everything,” he says, “starting 29 years ago when my agricultural mentor advocated for naturally raised crops and animals. We didn’t have much scientific data to go on back then – just a conviction that natural had to be better for the land, animals and humans.”
When Albertans travel abroad, eating local is expected – pesto in Liguria, leek pies in Wales, congee in China. In fact, culinary tourism propels travellers around the globe. But in times of monetary belt-tightening dictated by the global recession, such memorable excursions are begging to be discovered in our own backyard.
Eating from the source is the foundation of Slow Food, a movement conceived by Italian journalist Carlo Petrini in 1986 as the yin to fast food’s yang. “Slow” in this context doesn’t refer to prep time. On the contrary: a garden-ripe tomato gazpacho takes minutes to prepare. Instead, slow connotes how long a mouthful of the delicate potage – with its ephemeral taste of Indian-summer sun – might linger on the palate. Slow food puts the pleasure back in sourcing, cooking and eating food.
Observing a slow food diet goes hand-in-hand with supporting local agriculture. Visiting the source is a must, says Marlene Abrams, head of Alberta Agriculture’s Dine Alberta, a program dedicated to connecting restaurant chefs with producers and putting more Alberta-grown fare on restaurant plates. Abrams is keeping a close eye on the province’s new breed of chefs, ranchers and farmers – like the Cutfields – who are convinced that local markets are the best bet for ensuring a sustainable and secure food system.
“Off-the-beaten-track restaurants using local ingredients sustain rural producers and ensure that the family farm will endure,” says Abrams, who suggests another central Alberta roadtrip to meet Mary Ann Stevenson and Les Brunelle in Bashaw, population 800. On the couple’s 100-year-old family homestead, Applejack Ranch, they raise Dexter cattle, a tough Celtic breed that thrives in Alberta’s dicey weather. Together with Stevenson’s brother Geordie, the couple also recently opened Apples, a small restaurant in town. On its uncomplicated menu, their AAA natural grass-fed Dexter beef has pride of place.
“We want to be a destination,” says Brunelle over a steak dinner on the restaurant patio. Apples was once the site of the town post office. But now, not only is the setting steeped in tradition, so are the farm-direct ingredients. “It also means people don’t need to go into Camrose or Red Deer. They can keep their cash in the community.”
Still, “Eating local doesn’t necessarily mean white-tablecloth service,” says Abrams. She points to Eco Café in the hamlet of Pigeon Lake as a gold-standard example of casual, locally inspired dining. Owners Tim and Deborah Wood serve an ever-evolving selection of seasonal fare in a low-key setting along the roller-coaster road to cottage country. Then there’s Calgary’s Forage, a “farm-to-fork, foods-to-go” retail shop, where at least 75 per cent of the purchasing budget is spent on grown-in-Alberta products.
Forage’s robust and outspoken co-owner Wade Sirois is also Slow Food Calgary member and the primary motivator behind Local 101, an annual Calgary conference devoted to educating consumers about where their food comes from. His favourite foodie drive: south, to pick berries at the Saskatoon Farm and Kayben Farms, stopping at Chinook Honey Company and Chinook Arch Meadery in Okotoks and ending with supper at Route 40 Soup Co. in Turner Valley. “I love the atmosphere, the conversations with the locals, the sense of familiarity and comfort in being in a place with traditions,” he says.
There are no wrong turns when exploring Alberta’s rural food scene: a map, an appetite and an imagination are the best guides. Sometimes the next destination appears unexpectedly on road signs embedded in prairie sod, pointing to a farmers’ market, U-pick field or farm-gate stand.
In the north, for example, along the Peace Country’s long, looping roads, a ravenous traveller is sure to find good grub. Melsness Mercantile in Valhalla Centre serves a fine slice of homemade pie. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the nearby Beaverlodge Farmers’ Market is in full swing and the beautiful Red Willow Gardens is home to some of the province’s finest snappy-sweet crisp carrots. Or, roll east from Edmonton into the Ukrainian bloc, where the landscape in the region is peppered by massive sculptures that pay homage to Ukrainian culinary staples – sausages, perogies, mushrooms. There’s even an outdoor oven from the old country (called a piche) beside the venerable Smoky Lake Old Fashioned Bread Bakery. Another mandatory stop: the Mundare Sausage House.
Meanwhile in central Alberta, The Jungle Farm is arguably one of the oldest – and prettiest – family farms in the region, offering strawberry U-pick fields and a farm-gate store in the centre of its berry patch.
Owners Blaine and Leona Staples pull in harness with four other farms as part of an informal coalition known as the Innisfail Growers. The team includes Elna and Doug Edgar from Edgar Farms, the authority on asparagus, as well as neighbour John Mills. One of the province’s rare under-30 farmers, Mills grows sunflowers, melons and garlic at Eagle Creek Farms. The growers share a marketing budget, offer a self-guided “Country Drive” and sell their goods together at a half-dozen farmers’ markets. These markets are, in themselves, collectives. And as business incubators, they provide affordable, low-risk venues for farmers more familiar with seeding than selling, while offering a painter’s palette of seasonal heirloom plants, heritage animal breeds and artisan crafts.
Finally, in the province’s deep south, where wind turbines perch atop hills and dinosaur bones sleep in the earth, the strawberries bloom until late fall in the fields at Broxburn Vegetables & Café, east of Lethbridge. It’s a favourite of Scott Pohorelic, executive chef and local-foods advocate with the River Café in Calgary, who spends a lot of time in farmers’ fields. “I love the sense of awe that fills me on the wide-open prairie,” he says. “Farmers respond well to serious interest in what they do.”
In the field or market, anyone leery of food-borne illnesses and pesticides can learn exactly how their food was grown or raised. Foodies can also pick up tips on how farm-fresh foods should be handled, stored and prepared for optimal enjoyment.
“Two years ago, for example, we were putting Broxburn strawberries onto plates until November,” says Pohorelic. “They were bloody delicious.” Then he adds: “There’s something humbling about kneeling on the soil, picking berries.” The statement reminds me of a passage by the 13th-century Persian poet, Rumi, who wrote, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”
Agri-vation Free Plan your foodie roadtrip with the help of chomparoundalberta.com (click on “Off the Eaten Path” for 12 suggested routes).
Before setting out, assume that all farms offering tours or farm-gate sales require advance notice. Calling ahead is not just polite, it ensures up-to-date information on weather, produce availability and local happenings.
To safely bring home the goods, load the car with a cooler and cold packs. Take cash and the kids, but leave the pets at home.
Respect bio-security by staying within posted areas on the farm and dipping your boots in cleaning solution when you get home. (Yes, you’ll want to wear boots!)
