Dine At Home in Alberta

Agriculture is one of the major ways we define a region or country. We are what we eat, and we eat what we grow. In Europe, it is a truism: each country, and each region within that country’s borders, has a clearly defined sense of place. Everywhere, the food reflects the locale.

Time has a role in that easy clarity. It is less easy, in a young country where even the mountains are youthful, to recall that culture is embedded and rooted within agriculture. The connection is emphasized for Albertans during the short month of September, with Alberta Agriculture’s fourth annual Dine Alberta celebration of local produce cooked by local chefs.

The province-wide event was launched at Rouge restaurant on August 30, with a pair of like-minded chefs and a gaggle of growers gathered to celebrate the season’s bounty. Paul Rogalski, host and co-owner of Rouge, effortlessly made the local point with a series of beautiful plates that served up the best of regional produce. He injected tantalizing Broxburn Farm tomatoes with infused oil, made melt-in-your mouth gnocchi from Poplar Bluff’s potatoes and Hotchkiss Herbs & Produce spinach, then concluded with crabapple jellies harvested from the restaurant’s own orchard. Guest chefs and co-owners Susan Hopkins and Aaron Creurer of Red Tree Kitchen responded with “retro” dishes made modern: espresso cups of Whiskey Creek roasted tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, crusty sourdough slices filled with Fairwinds Farms chevre and caramelized Poplar Bluff cippolini onions; braised bison short ribs with black cardamom and star anise.

Wes Johnson, Alberta Agriculture’s Regional Cuisine Specialist who spearheaded the Dine Alberta initiative again this year, comments that Dine Alberta’s underlying objectives –which include creating increased demand for locally grown products—produce a winning month for all Albertans.

“This initiative gives consumers that sense of connectedness– to where their food originates, and the people who grow it. The chefs all benefit from increased opportunity to find fresh and local, and farmers have alternatives in where they can sell what they grow.”

The ultimate goal, Johnson says, is to give Albertans greater access to Albertan food.

Over 100 restaurants, caterers and schools are participating in this year’s Dine Alberta month of eating, serving food from over 100 Albertan growers. It gives diners a harvest of flavours as varied as the landscape across Alberta. In the mountains, Num-Ti-Jah Lodge’s chef, Amanda McLean, slow-roasts wild boar ribs with roasted pumpkin and peppered apple chutney. At The Coup, taste sangria made with Fieldstone Farm’s prairie berry wines. At the Tribune, savour coddled Driview lamb with a “fiasco” of beans, while Saint Germain offers a suitably bistro dish of Sunworks duck rillettes, or shredded slow-simmered duck.

Some of the participating restaurants, cooking schools and caterers feature Albertan cuisine yearlong, as do Scott Pohorelic at River Café, Liana Robberecht at her Petroleum Club tables, and Wade Sirois, a vociferous champion of regionality on the many menus his Infuse Group designs for Isabella’s, Infuse Catering and Forage at the Market.

Participating Dine Alberta chefs have an opportunity to meet and partner with Albertans like Win Niebler of Elbow Falls Wapiti, who was present at the Calgary launch. The rancher pastures 100 head of elk near Priddis, and has a long-standing history of involvement with local food and drink as a co-founder of Brew Brothers Brew Pub in Canmore. “I like to have a beer with my elk,” he says, not really joking at all. The herd and its care keep him balanced, he maintains. He is a staunch advocate of local. “Why cross borders into exotic food when we have the freshest air and cleanest water right here? And the elk, they were here long before we arrived.”

Niebler describes elk meat as lean, with finely textured muscle tissue, ideal for slow braised osso buco. “That slow simmer at 70 degrees is what converts elk shank from Michelin-tire-tough into fall-apart tender.”

Several other local producers were at the Calgary launch, including Robert Boschman, the down-to-earth and blunt-speaking co-owner of Poplar Bluff. His highly regarded potatoes and onions were featured in the dishes made by Rouge and Red Tree Kitchen. He sells organic potatoes and vegetables to a handful of Albertan restaurants and health food stores. “I am a grower because I love it, love Mother Earth, love the sense of connection,” he explains. For the regional culture of food to take root, chefs and diners need growers like Boschman, who feel strongly about what they do and produce high-quality food.

Dine Alberta has scheduled three other “regional” launches across the province: on September 5, the Mercantile Café, home of fabulous berry pies, in Valhalla Centre near Grand Prairie, held the north country launch; September 7, near Lethbridge, at Broxburn Vegetables & Café; in Edmonton’s Seasoned Solutions’ Loft Cooking School, the Honourable Doug Horner, Minister of Agriculture, will host a demonstration by Edmonton chefs.

Dine Alberta will return across the province for the month of September 2007. Look online at www.dinealberta.ca for a listing of participating restaurants, and ask for the Dine Alberta menu. It’s local. As Boschman says, “I don’t believe in traveling a long ways to eat.”