Tour

From Ontario’s Farms to Toronto’s Finest

By Alexa Leon

A pasture-to-plate exploration of Ontario’s localist food culture reveals a rich regional identity.

Au Terroir

I’m standing in the dandelion-filled grass outside of Antony John’s organic farm, Soiled Reputation, in Sebringville, exactly 100 miles northeast of Toronto. I’m here to lunch with Antony, pig farmer Fred de Martines of neighboring Perth Pork Products and chef Aaron Linley of Bijou restaurant in Stratford. Inside, Aaron is preparing a meal from the fruits of Antony’s and Fred’s labor. Antony explains that Perth County’s unique climate lends its produce its character. Like wine, the food that’s grown from the microflora-rich soil exudes the flavor of the terroir. Carrots, for example, gain a sweetness from withstanding the Canadian frost that Californian carrots lack.

The main course consists of impossibly tender braised pork belly from Fred’s naturally raised wild boar – a treat made more indulgent by the fact that it takes four times longer to raise than the average pig – accompanied by Antony’s fingerlings. By the time I get to the rhubarb dessert, I’m pretty sure I’ve tuned my palate to Perth County soil. “Most people probably couldn’t name eight bird songs but are likely to know as many as 150 brand names,” according to Antony. As he explains it, we’ve become alienated from the people and places that produce our food, so we’ve become alienated from the food itself. But by reconnecting with our food, we reconnect with the communities that link production and consumption.

Farm Fresh Food in the City

Nowhere is it clearer that community comes together around food than at the city’s farmers’ markets, where Torontonians gather to stock up on fresh and local fare. Some, like the St. Lawrence Market, have been around for over a century, while others, like the Brick Works Farmers’ Market and the Stop’s Green Barn Market (now three times its original size), have only cropped up in recent years. When I visit Cookie Roscoe Handford, the market manager of Green Barn, we strain to speak over a neighborhood bluegrass band while people around us browse the produce. For Cookie, the market is, above all, a means of building community, and bringing in farmers is an extension of this. “People leave the market feeling a bit better about where they live,” she tells me.

Putting It to the Taste

The final leg of my tour is designed to taste the land’s bounty as expressed by chefs who are on the vanguard of the movement. For chef Tawfik Shehata of Vertical, who has his own farm outside of Toronto, menu planning is a matter of weekly visits to see what’s sprouting. When I stop in, asparagus is clearly the theme; the menu opens with a glowing description of its virtues. Meanwhile, chef Mark Cutrara of Cowbell in Parkdale uses only naturally raised meats and is an avid proponent of using the full animal. From his charcuterie plate (including venison with blueberries and elk with chocolate) to the lamb haggis and fermented beer sausage, my meal is a lesson in livestock anatomy. From Cowbell, I head to the intimate, candlelit Niagara Street Café, where owner Anton Potvin muses about the pride he takes in offering food that he’s personally sourced, the photos of he and chef Nick Liu foraging for ramps being a case in point. “The fiddleheads in your salad were driven in today by my mother,” Anton boasts.

My whirlwind culinary tour ends appropriately at the idyllic Langdon Hall in Cambridge, where executive chef Jonathan Gushue takes me on a tour of the property’s impressive vegetable garden. Jonathan picks asparagus (’tis the season, I guess), which reappears later, paired with tarragon-stuffed Langdon morels and pig’s heart confit. The ginger used in the wild ginger tapioca dessert is picked right from the surrounding forest. Forget 100 miles – most of the ingredients that make up this phenomenal meal come from just steps away. In fact, it occurs to me that there’s no such thing as the 100-mile diet. The 100 miles between Soiled Reputation and Green Barn contain both unique soil and a unique community.

On your own culinary tour, be sure to also check out the following artisanal and local product retailers and restaurants:

Soiled Reputation, 4129 Road 130, Sebringville, 519-393-6497
Buddha Dog, 163 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-534-2007
C5, the Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park, 416-586-7928
Culinarium, 705 Mount Pleasant Rd., 647-430-7004
Cumbrae’s, 481 Church St., 416-923-5600; 1636 Bayview Ave., 416-485-5620
Jamie Kennedy Kitchens: 9 Church St., 416-362-1957 (JK Wine Bar); 111 Queen’s Park, 416-362-1957 (JK at the Gardiner); 4 Gilead Place, 647-288-0680 (Gilead Café)
Pantry, 974 Collage St., 416-364-2495

(Alexa Leon is a freelance writer and foodie-in-training based in Montreal.)

KIDS: SHADI EDAREHCHI
MARKET: CITY OF TORONTO / ST LAWRENCE MARKET