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Fall Flavours in PEI
By Ivy Knight
Victorian buildings in Charlottetown. Photo: John Sylvester
There is more to Prince Edward Island than potatoes. Canada's smallest province is seeing a surge of farmers and chefs focused on developing a truly unique Island cuisine.
Thanks to the efforts of Food Network star and Island resident, Michael Smith and the ever-expanding programs offered by the Culinary Institute of Canada, the Island is finally coming into it's own gastronomically. A recent visit showed me just how far they've progressed.
This was the first year for Fall Flavours, a festival put on by Tourism Charlottetown to show visitors what's happening in PEI's food scene with hundreds of events and dinners over six days. Attendees could harvest Irish moss in the morning and cranberries in the afternoon on Seacow Pond, or learn about Acadian cuisine in Abram's Village, take a tour of the Island's only winery, Rossignol Estates or their only brewery, Gahan House. Then there were clam bakes, corn boils, a Scotch Enthusiasts Dinner and a Lobster Lover's Feast.
My Fall Festival begins with a dinner at Dalvay by the Sea: eight courses from the PEI Chef's Association. Michael Smith sits across from me as we get the first course, accompanied by a shot of PEI potato vodka. After shooting it back Michael talks about his hopes for PEI's future. He compares it to Niagara or Prince Edward County in Ontario, two places that have grown into gourmet destinations. He thinks PEI will grow into that over the next few years. The winery and brewery are still young, but getting better each year. The first time cheesemakers and farmers trying to grow organic will all contribute to the culinary scene.
Michael introduces me to the International Guest Chef, Mike Sheerin. Mike tells me how he spent the day picking potatoes and meeting the farmers he'll be paired with for the upcoming Roving Feast. This guy was Wylie Dufresne’s sous chef at WD50 in New York and is now Head Chef at Blackbird in Chicago, one of the hottest restaurants in the United States. I sort of can't believe he's here, it's fantastic.
I meet Jeff McCourt, a member of the Chef's Association, "It's a small place here, we're all friends who went to school together. The culinary school is the cornerstone of the Chef's Association, the instructors make up a big part of our membership. This is a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone and we help each other out."
The Culinary Institute of Canada, which opened in 1983, is a major component in the culinary growth spurt the province is experiencing. The school attracts students from all over the country, bringing young people with fresh ideas to the salty old Island. They get to experience the Maritime lifestyle and at the same time inject it with a little magic "from away".
The next morning I meet my sister Sarah and 10 month old nephew Lawson in the lobby of the Great George Inn. She plans to take me to different spots around the Island to show me all the options open to home cooks now for stocking their kitchens with organic, local ingredients. After a peak in at the Riverview Market, a farmer-owned and operated store where they sell organically produced meats and produce as well as T-shirts reading "Where Has Your Food Been?" we head to the Best of PEI Market, where all the beef, pork and poultry in the butcher case are sourced from the Maritimes. There are mounds of Island grown produce and anything sourced off Island, like the apples from Nova Scotia, are listed as "from away".
I get a lobster roll that is a revelation. There's no Miracle Whip on it! You have to understand how insidious Miracle Whip was when I was growing up here. Islanders would put it in everything, they were all crazy for it’s ‘tang’!
When Michael Smith first came to PEI to work at the Inn at Bay Fortune seventeen years ago, he couldn't buy tarragon or chervil so he had to start growing his own. Soon he had farmers growing micro greens and asparagus for him. That's a small thing that really sparked a food movement. Michael Smith tells me about a woman who is growing heirloom potatoes, while her father grows Russet Burbanks. This year she sold her harvest for twenty times what he sold his for.
The next dinner I attend is a Roving Feast that pairs different farmers and producers with each chef. I have some beef tenderloin with chanterelle mushroom ragout from chef Kent Wilson. Kent has been cooking for 15 years and is currently Head Chef at Mavor's Bistro in Charlottetown’s Confederation Centre. The beef he’s serving is from fourth generation farmer, Scott Drake of Steerman's Quality Meats. "It's naturally raised on an all vegetable ration, no by-products. We also grow pigs, chickens and turkeys." Scott tells me. He sells half his product to the public, it's in the butcher case at the Best of PEI market.
Mike Sheerin offers two dishes, with ingredients sourced from the three farms he's partnered with: Springwillow Farms, Kentdale Farms and Wintermoor Orchards. The first dish has perfectly braised pork belly in a fragrant cinnamon consommé with spaghetti squash and Brussels' sprouts. The second is a cauliflower brandade with puffed potato and apple, that's deliciously simple and elegant.
I also try a dish from Stephen Hunter, the chef at Victoria Village Inn for the past eight years. Stephen is paired with Summer Garden Produce and his dish contains only ingredients from them, "everything except the olive oil, salt and pepper", he says. A fresh soybean puree with golden cherry tomatoes, runner beans and baby carrots, served with a baby bell pepper stuffed with ratatouille. For a chef to come to an event like this and make a salad takes balls and a high level of skill. Wowing people with a salad is lot harder than wowing them with a big piece of meat.
A lot of the dishes feature Rare Earth potatoes grown by Susan and Sandra MacKinnon. Two sisters who felt that, "if PEI is viewed as the "Potato Capital of Canada" why are we only offering one size, on shape, one color potato?" They met with several chefs and discovered a need for more variation with the potato supply, this led to the establishment of the Rare Earth Potato Company.
One of their customers is The Inn at Bay Fortune whose chef, Warren Barr, is paired with Allister Veinot of Avondale Meadows Farm for this dinner. Allister's farm, where he raises sheep and makes sheep's milk cheeses, has been certified organic for twenty years. For Warren's dish he supplied the lamb and Warren turned it into a succulent navarin containing Rare Earth potatoes that almost rival the lamb for exemplary flavour. Warren tops the navarin with a mound of transparent, silky lamb prosciutto. I've said in the past that Ontario’s Mario Pingue has found the melting point of pork with his prosciutto, well Warren Barr just found the melting point of lamb.
"The majority of our customers are off-Island, so they come with an interest in PEI produce but in terms of the local Islanders the interest is really growing, you can see it just at the farmer's market." Warren tells me.
The Charlottetown Farmer's Market is exactly where my sister takes me the next day. It's my nephew Calvin's third birthday today and we need to pick up something for a birthday lunch with him. The first booth we come to is Allister's, where we sample and buy his three sheep's milk cheeses. A very mild, delicate blue called Bleu D'Acadie, a firmer Märti and a semi-soft Le Sieur de Duplessis. Then we head to the Island Taylored Meats booth. These are the people who are grilling up the "ugly dog" at the entrance to the Market, so called because it's naturally made and doesn't look like a typical Maple Leaf wiener. They've got some kolbassa, my sister eyes it skeptically. We have never found good kolbassa on the Island and we are kolbassa fanatics thanks to our old Polish babysitter Waz. We try a sample and immediately buy some, not only does it taste wonderfully authentic it's also made naturally with no nitrates or preservatives. We need bread so we go to the Island Baking and Milling booth. It's run by Steve Knechtel, our family has been buying bread from him since we were kids. We buy some apples from Mark Ashley of Wintermoor Orchards and we're all set, except for one ingredient.
My mother, Rose-Marie, and I head to Mackinnon's Lobster Pound to load up on beautiful lobster. Calvin's birthday lunch is made entirely of Island grown and produced food, most of which is organic, not that he cares at all. With a handful of lobster meat he proceeds to tear into his presents, while Rose-Marie and Sarah freak out over Allister's cheeses.
I spend that evening at the Stanhope Beach Resort where I meet some C.I.C. graduates, Executive Chef Ilona Daniel and G.M. Craig Dauphinee, both "from away". After doing a shot of the new "legal moonshine" they've got behind the bar (I'll get back to this), they tell me how they came to be here at this beautiful resort in the middle of nowhere. "I've always wanted to come to the East Coast. I love being in the country. Everyday Craig and I are out checking on our sunflowers and our squash and tomatoes." Says Ilona, originally from Hamilton, Ontario.
They both came here to do their applied degree at the C.I.C. "It's the only college in Canada with this type of program," Craig, who is originally from Halifax, tells me, "It focuses on facility design, marketing, consulting, health and safety, etc. and opens up all the other avenues we have in this career we've chosen. There are other possibilities besides standing on the line in front of a stove."
Ilona and I spend a few chilly hours on the deck in front of her restaurant, looking out over the water, smoking and drinking Sir John A MacDonald beer from the Gahan Brewery. She did her thesis at school on the future of agriculture and sustainability so she's a real activist about buying local. "Being able to work closely with the farmers and suppliers has been amazing."
The next morning and my last day here, I go to the Farm Day In the City event where the line-up for baked Island potatoes winds down the block. Everyone is wearing "Buy PEI" pins and I see a few signs that read "Eaten Lately? Thank a Farmer." There are lots of crafts for sale along with preserves and pickles. I see a pair of absolutely stunning lobster claw-shaped mittens, but unfortunately they only have them in children's sizes.
There's a big line-up at Kevin Ryan's booth. Originally from Newfoundland, his father started farming summer savoury and parsnips in South Pinette, PEI. "After he passed away in 2001 I decided to keep Ryan's Farm going but only growing the summer savoury. It's my main love and it's immensely popular on the East Coast. Since we set up shop in South Pinette there have always been people returning to buy the summer savoury, but recently local marketing has become more focussed. Events like Fall Flavours can only have a positive effect for local growers."
I buy a bag of the herb to take home for Thanksgiving, this will later be mistaken for marijuana when it falls out of my bag at the airport. Thankfully the sage-y smell will prove the contents aren't for smoking but for stuffing.
I have lunch in downtown Charlottetown at Sim's Corner, where Chef Duane McLeod serves us a seafood chowder of mussels, halibut and lobster. I’ve had watery, bland chowders many times from the half-assed pub kitchens in Charlottetown, one spoonful of Duane’s chowder makes all those bad memories evaporate. There isn’t anything half-assed about this kitchen’s food. Every thing I've eaten at the Fall Festival has been standout, that’s not to say it’s all been perfect, but even the lacklustre dishes are better than the crap this small town used to try to pass off as 'fine dining'. I'm really impressed.
In an email I received when I got back, P.E.I. Tourism's Pamela Vienneau explained that there's a bit of a movement afoot to try and make the whole Island certified organic: "Our primary industries all relate very directly to the table: agriculture, tourism, and the fishery, so there is a connection there that might not exist in quite the same way, to quite the same extent, in any other province in Canada. One of the beautiful things about living in a small Island province is that what might seem impossible and daunting elsewhere, becomes possible here. Islanders have been leaders in many environmental projects. We have an incredibly progressive composting and recycling program. We have a strong history of developing renewable energy technologies. Why couldn't it be possible to have the vision and foresight to become a completely organic province?"
It’s the last day of the Festival, so I make my way to the liquor store to grab some Strait Shine before I leave. This new legal moonshine from Myriad View Artisan Distillery is fairly deadly but has a cleaner finish than the backwoods rotgut I’m used to. They also make the PEI Potato Vodka and a 70% version of the moonshine called Lightning Shine. Yikes! Too bad I didn't bring an extra suitcase.
After loading up on artisanal hooch that is sure to put hair on my chest I head back to the Stanhope Beach Resort to get ready for the finale dinner at the Inn at Bay Fortune. After Warren Barr's amazing feats with lamb at the Roving Feast I'm excited to see what he does with tonight's menu.
This dinner will go down in my personal history as an evening where a young chef got to wow us with nine courses without going ape-shit on the plates. Warren showed real maturity by letting the ingredients speak for themselves. I taste a Digby scallop that reminds me why humans started eating scallops in the first place. One course is a deconstructed Bloody Mary on a plate that features a clam salad, an oven-dried tomato gelee and P.E.I. Distillery’s potato vodka with an emulsion of celery from the Inn's garden. There is a pumpkin soup that doesn't taste like Mrs. Claus' hairdo, real pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling. Throughout the dinner some components stand out; a wild apple sorbet, pickled nasturtium buds, Cow's Avonlea clothbound cheddar and a crab apple gelee all adding to the experience.
The main course has Warren working his magic with an ingredient he knows very well, local lamb. The succulent leg is stuffed with apricots and herbs and served over a cassoulet of local beans and shiitakes.
I grew up here and left as soon as I could, since then I have only come back for obligatory family visits and never thought of this place as anything other than that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever truly enjoyed a visit to my hometown in the way that I have other trips I’ve taken. There’s been a shift though and something has clicked. Islanders have always been proud of their heritage and suspicious of change, so to see them eating the high-falutin’ food of these chefs “from away” and shopping at Riverview Market for organic lamb chops feels somewhat hallucinatory. The saying “you can never go home again” holds true when you’ve changed and home hasn’t, but when home changes like this it becomes a place you never want to leave.
Our smallest province is turning into a big contender on the Canadian food scene. Book your tickets now for next year, so you can say you were there when it all began and you ate a lot more than potatoes.
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