Let’s Taste Canada

Studio East - Owners

https://www.studioeastfood.ca/New owners - still wonderful food! 
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Studio East was interviewed with original owners Saronn and Ray share how they love to travel and the many places they have lived including, the importance of food and eating together so that family memories of food naturally come up in conversation and how they have their own shared experience about food. 
Saronn's super high energy and sweet personality comes out and Ray's thoughtful sharings showcase their different strengths. Saronn brings her unique perspective of food having been born outside of the country enjoying celebrating Canadian food. Ray's experience in the industry helped when discussing speed. They both have spoken about enjoying cooking from scratch, work-life balance, sustainability of not only the land but also the restaurant industry, appreciating working closely with local farmers and farmer's markets as well as naming the challenges. They speak about the whole food system of food grown to making the food in the kitchen as well as financial side.
If you are interested in a very sweet valuable conversation.
My hope is this episode will inspire you to think how you eat, how many different people eat and stay curious (not judgemental) as we all learn together - I really invite you to listen to very educated conversation about enjoying food and the practical challenges in a really positive lens - as if at a table or in the backyard together.
This episode strengthens the experience of how Canadian food can be adventurous - cooking with varied ingredients but prioritizing local. In fact, it was one of the times that  I mentioned 'so far' experience - "One is that each region has its own food and also that the commonality is that it's too diverse to name." 
My vision of NS is a culinary destination place that has an abundance of everything we want to grow and use and making it a rewarding career for kitchen staff and this is a career I love.
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Here are a few quotes - although there are many many which are great: 
"I had seen him work, it’s crazy hours,, we’ll move into the woods."
"We try to do to we have to train them by flavour, the natural product – as any product we use will never be exactly the same, so we say ‘taste this, taste this’ but if you show them a recipe it will never be consistent because mother nature is never exactly the same."
"Food is so important in our culture, you eat together – there’s nothing else more important than putting food on the table and eating as a family."
"We want to serve local product, but there seems to be a lot of reasons why things can’t be done… it’s very educational for us. Our guests have come to us and they are ready for this stuff, but at the same time you have farmers and local producers continuing to decline in Nova Scotia - that’s a big concern"
"Guests are ready for it, it's an exciting time in Nova Scotia"
"future generations, what are we going to leave for them when we're gone, right?" ... work on the business and still be able to impact change.. we need to connect not in a formal way but we're talking about like having a bonfire and just celebrating the feast of the season, you know, having a pig roast in the middle of nowhere."
"What’s sustainable for us to serve in our restaurant. Can we get the product, can we get the local product and if we can’t then it’s probably not going on the menu… if it’s really not available for us... you ask a small farmer will you grow this for us, but you know it’s like .. how much do you need and is it worth their time"
"Let's keep growing what we are good at growing... At the same time, how do we make all these ethnic vegetables, ethnic food?... it's now consumed a lot."
"I don't have time to eat... I am constantly tasting stuff... recently we implemented that into our routine."
"things will drop.. it's ok just pick it back up."
"Canada, think of apple pie, pumpkin pie, if you look at Nova Scotia, you think about seafood chowder, if you go to Ontario, it could be a number of things."
*The concepts are true to interviewees perspectives at the time of the interviewee and have not been fact checked.*

Jeff McCourt - Cheese Maker

Check out the website:www.letstastecanada.ca/podcast for the recent podcast release
Check out the blog for the quotes:
- I was always kind of taking risks. I remember I asked my mom to buy seafood to make, I wanted to make chowder.
And, you know, for me, she kind of, it was one of those iconic PEI food products.
We're a dairy rich province here in Canada, in Prince Edward Island specifically, some of the highest, you really good milk for making cheese. It's fermented, is something, you know, that bacterial fermentation is what we're missing these days in our kind of our gut system. 
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Cookbook: flavours of Prince Edward Island - a culinary journey 
https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/flavours-of-prince-edward-island/9781770503854.html

Jon Svazas - Chef

I've always told new cooks to get the flavor bible because it's sort of an eye-opener on what actually goes with what and why.
This Bar Laurel is Spanish tapas, wine bar, lots of cocktails. ⁓ But Fauna is very Canadian, very locally sourced.
He used take me out and pick mushrooms so we would make mushroom perogies with wild mushrooms.
Because you have great, great wine growing region. You have the best farming in my opinion. You'll probably say the Okanagan, but they're both very good. I mean, they're the only two places where you can grow apricots and quince and, you know, really cool product that... that's the only two spots in Canada you can do it. But I find the food culture is not anywhere near what they do in terms of agriculture.
Duck dishes with local berries, that kind of thing is a very Ottawa dish. A lot of game dishes here too. I mean, of course it's not wild because we're not allowed.
Well, fauna is definitely quite strictly local. Sometimes painfully so in the middle of winter. And you don't want to look at another root vegetable ever again.
 
Well I think farming is crazy. ⁓ It is maybe the only job that is harder and makes you less money than cooking.
There's people growing it and taking care of it and watering it and picking it and cleaning it. A whole bunch of stuff happens before you get to pick up your nice little neat baskets in the grocery store.
Defined nutritious food. ⁓ mean, no additives. As few preservatives as possible. ⁓ Mostly fresh. A lot of raw or very lightly cooked vegetables. ⁓ I like, I love meat. I could never be a vegetarian. ⁓ But I do like the recent sort of growth of the vegetable forward.

Mike McKenzie

Mike is a sausage maker - Seed to Sausage. He lived all over, is action oriented in the food world, and previously was in the military. He speaks about hot dogs in Montreal to making fried rice, cooking dinner while I was there for the interview and everything in our house revolves around food. 
This episode Mike is very easygoing, there's a pup and his wonderful family in the background. Since it was closer to the end of the trip he asks a few questions at the end and it does provide quite a nice summary of the trip overall and what is to come as there are quite a few! 
Clarification that I think the intention was to say cultural appreciation... "taking everybody we have around us and working together to make delicious stuff"
Discussing how he handles food safety issues as a processing facility. 
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"I was in the military so it was really difficult for me to meet people who were interested in food. I started going to these meetings and everybody wanted to do great things."
"I really loved making salami" 
"[Favourite food memory] Montreal steamy hot dogs... but still at the Atwater Market I will go and eat hot dogs."
"I can only speak to the values that I produce food by. We try to buy them as close to home as possible. Being close to home isn't necessarily good enough, we have to look at transportation... certified humane... realistically that is just my ethics but that doesn't necessarily make it sustainable."
"A huge question is food distribution. Produce high quality product and build on that food security."
"Food is very simple in my mind. The salt, the sour, the sweet. So we play with these ingredients"
"I just want to make delicious food people want to eat... It's like that scientific method. I will make the fried rice, and then I taste it, and then I think it needs this, and this, but I can't add them both in the next recipe I can only add one, I can only make one small change... otherwise I am not going to know what I do. I think every dish I cook at home becomes an experiment I have to learn from."
"This is more what I would know about... we do nationally fermented salami, the same way you would make salami ... 100 years ago 500 years ago however we have to do it in today's structured, highly regulated food standards... "
"fat is part of the meat I think... I just learned recently but I don't know if this is true or not... but and they were really clearly bashing those companies ... but those same companies tried to make those recipes healthier, and since they have been making the products healthier but they can't tell people they are making it healthier... but I am not sure where I heard it from.... and my pet peeve is unsubstantiated claims... the consumer is at the end of the day making that decision... We as the consumer created that company... we are even adapting even if you don't want the change. 
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**Correction that the amount per month now is closer to $800 - $1000 and in BC 2022 $1263 for a family of four. See upcoming blog post for more information and resources. https://letstastecanada.ca/
https://www.bccdc.ca/Documents/Food_Costing_in_BC_2022_Report_FINAL.pdf0
https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/how-many-canadians-are-affected-by-household-food-insecurity/ https://proof.utoronto.ca/resource/the-spending-patterns-of-food-insecure-households/

Farm Funding: Linda

Linda speaks about growing up on a farm, and how her career helped her inform her current support for ongoing farming. There are many topics discussed regarding eating food, farming, and well educated conversations about the food system – even discussing a PhD article from 1851 to 1991.
Here are a few quotes: 
We need to be educated about the situation regarding our food.
I am thrilled to be able to work with some of the hardest working people that you’ll find anywhere.. I don’t think people realize how many hats people have to wear
Farmers are choosing to sell the land because that is their pension… the average age of a farmer … is 57… we have all kinds of land that is no longer in production… there are way too many barriers to entry.
I would say that food is a key to rural economic development and it is vastly underutilized.
We have now loaned over 1.9 million… 112 loans to 72 businesses
The bottom line for farmers is not what it should be. When you see people investing their money in order to get a 6, 10, 12% return on investment, farmers would love to be able to even know they would get a 5 or even a 3, or 5% return on their investment
I read the statistics, that the good news was that … the remaining.. producers …instead of basically actually paying us 3 cents on the dollar to eat their food...
Regulations are becoming more and more stringent. I think that the best possible regulation is for me to buy from someone I know and buy the best food I can because it is grown here with all of the qualities I mentioned
We need to raise awareness ...who has some discretion around their spending were to switch just 10%, and 50% would be wonderful … from whatever is cheapest to whatever is local… everything that we do helps. 
If we believe in ourselves and want to support ourselves… we have billions and billions of dollars which are building other people’s economies.
The quality of food that we can produce... there is no comparison between the taste of good food 

MINI - Food Access

A second quick very short edit over the holidays! A bit of short conversation! 
A quick note that many food banks, along with many other programs also do wonderful work tirelessly to support families over the holidays and many have worked to support including the person in the process however it is a good reminder to be practical, action oriented however these are all good things to think about both the provision of support and how we can apply it.
This podcast is meant to provide many perspectives to consider to either deepen beliefs as you may disagree with something provided or include new ways of thinking in a super lighthearted way even though they are important conversations. 
Happy Tasting! 

MINI - Respect- Value Food

Over the holidays I thought just a minute episode would be a nice reduced option in a busy time.
I recommend taking time you may have spent listening over the holidays with your loved ones! And please consider going back to listen to another podcast that you may not have listened to last time! 
May people who are enjoying a good meal be grateful and people who may wish for more food know that you matter.
If you celebrate - I hope you have a wonderful time. If the holidays are challenging for you - I hope you are kind to yourself.

Paul Moores: Lobster Rolls Food Truck, Food Safety & Food Processing

Take a listen to Paul Moores who speaks to a wide variety within a career. There are excellent comments on being excited about lobster, food safety  training, including in restaurants.
Since having completed this podcast - he now owns Shediac Bay Cruises:www.shediacbaycruises.ca
Here are some quotes:
There are many numerous lobster processing facilities here so there was one right on the wharf here. They still hold lobster here...  they will process a fair amount of lobster and ship all over the world.
Food access ... most people see grocery stores as access. More people are looking at community farms, markets, we do local rather than supermarket...  and there are becoming more access to local products.
I see a little bit of food safety... I mean I do a lot of training for people in food banks... I know there are a lot of security issues for people to get a safe healthy meal. 

Tim - Farmer

Tim speaks so well that I was enthralled about his farming experience, the importance of soil, the loss of honeybees and how pollination is super important to help support agriculture and food in Canada. Please do take a listen to a wonderful expert on agriculture and farming

Chef Michael Smith

Chef Michael Smith