Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms
Written by Margaret Webb (Penguin Group Canada, Toronto)
Reviewed by Nancy Hinton

What a refreshing change from the parade of 30-minute meal solutions and chef cookbooks this little gem proved to be!  A genuine piece of Canadian food writing that I highly recommend, Apples to Oysters packs a lot between the covers. Besides being entertaining and informative, it’s a travel tale to make food lovers salivate, a slide show of portraits that touches the spirit and stirs national pride.

On a mission to uncover the finest edible treasures from coast to coast, Margaret Webb takes us to meet and eat with some of Canada’s most inspiring and innovative food artisans.  She gets us excited about the ‘real’ food they are producing, but shines the spotlight most on the people. The eleven stories get close up and personal, describing their day to day struggles and victories.  Weaved into the engaging and often humorous narrative is also a sobering look at our food system.

The main characters are bright lights, ‘salt of the earth’ trail blazers making a break from the dominant industrial agriculture model, shunning chemicals and embracing sustainable ways.  Immersed in their world, we are made aware of many important issues, including the detrimental effects of agri-business on taste, nutrition and the environment.  In following them and feasting on their offerings, Webb not only finds new, unique quality to shout about, but she rediscovers the old, ‘electric’ taste of food at its source and the farm culture of her childhood, encouraging the reader to want to bridge that gap too.

Starting with Johnny Flynn and his famous PEI oysters, she leads us on to dulse and periwinkles in NB, then to Duncan Bates’ eco-friendly scallop operation in Nova Scotia, and off to Newfoundland to learn of a promising cod project in with Jennifer Caines and ‘the Codfather’. On the prairies, we visit a pig farm in Manitoba, where we sympathize with Ian who is raising pigs the old fashioned way in the in the land of Big Pork.  We are introduced to the tasty, cancer fighting (and other) benefits of Cecil’s roasted flax in Saskatchewan, as well as a number of other courageous farmers across the country going organic, even in the Yukon (Heidi Marion and Garret Gillespie)!.  In BC, Ambrosia apples are on the menu; in Niagara, its Henry of Pelham wines.  And in Quebec, we accompany Frederic on Île aux Grues in his efforts to make his Tomme de Grosse Île cheese using the milk of Brown Swiss cows.

The best thing about this book is its call to herald the farmer, who is sadly, the most neglected (and underpaid) part of our modern food chain.  It is a most relevant message since so many Canadians now live urban lifestyles, disconnected from the land, unaware of the magic and the mundane behind their groceries. As Webb states, “Poor farmers, poor food, poor us.”  For our own good, we ought to care more about the kind of farmer highlighted in this book.  Only multinationals, chemical and seed companies benefit from industrial agriculture.  However, she largely lets their stories take us there, keeping it a pleasure ride, more than a lecture in food politics.  We can’t help but appreciate that it is their work that is the hopeful part of our food system; simply meeting them leaves the reader hungry and enlightened.

Webb is obviously having fun here, too. Her writing is bubbly and intimate, always earnest, and contagiously passionate, making for an enjoyable read.  And for the inevitable appetite that growls along the way, there is a smattering of home-style, delicious recipes throughout to match.

In show casing their contributions to our culinary landscape, Webb makes an important one of her own.  Every Canadian should read this book to learn more about their food, and the local possibilities out there, to want to celebrate and support these heroes, all while eating and living better.

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Nancy Hinton is the chef at La Table des Jardins Sauvages, a woodland table specializing in wild plants and mushrooms, outside of Montreal. You can read about her food adventures on her blog Soup Nancy.