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Cooking Canadian

Prairie

Seasonal, Farm-Fresh Recipes Celebrating the Canadian Prairies

by (author) Dan Clapson & Twyla Campbell

Publisher
Random House Canada
Initial publish date
Aug 2023
Category
Canadian, Seasonal, Individual Chefs & Restaurants
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780525611929
    Publish Date
    Aug 2023
    List Price
    $37.50

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Description


A GLOBE & MAIL BESTSELLER
Over 100 Proud-to-be-Prairie recipes showcasing the seasons, produce, flavours, and traditions of one of Canada’s most exciting culinary regions.

Dan Clapson and Twyla Campbell take us on a grand tour of the many faces and places that make up the Canadian Prairies. With over 100 delectable recipes, Prairie draws inspiration from the beauty of the changing seasons as well as the many different ingredients and cultures that make the Prairies such a culinary hotspot. The book is filled with

  • Tried-and-true seasonal recipes that will introduce Prairie flavours to your home kitchen like Sorrel, Farro, and Chicken Soup and Saskatchewan Succotash Salad
  • Ingredients special to the Prairies like Sea Buckthorn, Haskap, and Saskatoon Berry
  • Introductions to many of the Prairie’s most exciting chefs and their signature recipes
  • A mix of modern and traditional recipes, from perogies to Beet Mezzalune

No matter the season, the Prairies are all about preserving every ounce of food, so of course there’s also tons of helpful tips and tricks on reducing food waste. There’s even a Staples chapter with recipes for stocking your pantry to keep you cooking all year long. Both a love letter to Canada’s grandest provinces and an indispensable collection of recipes, Prairie is as inviting and bountiful as the region it celebrates.

About the authors

Contributor Notes

DAN CLAPSON is the The Globe and Mail restaurant critic for the Canadian Prairies and is the co-founder of the food media and events company Eat North. He has contributed to many publications including Out Magazine, Eater, Ricardo magazine, and enRoute. He is also a regular guest expert on radio and TV shows like Global Calgary, CTV Morning Live Saskatoon, and Global Edmonton. TWYLA CAMPBELL has been writing about food, wine, cocktails, and travel for 14 years and is CBC Edmonton Radio’s long-standing restaurant reviewer and culinary expert. Twyla sits on several national and local food judging panels and is a sought-after panelist when it comes to the topic of food and restaurants.

Excerpt: Prairie: Seasonal, Farm-Fresh Recipes Celebrating the Canadian Prairies (by (author) Dan Clapson & Twyla Campbell)

Introduction

Dan and I have been reporting on the Canadian culinary scene for longer than Twitter has been around, which is quite a while. At the point of this writing, he and I are also two of the few remaining professional food critics in Canada.

We eat at restaurants (a lot!) and get paid to talk about our experiences. Obviously, we love food. We love to eat it, talk about it, and cook it too. With the food media landscape ever evolving, there may not always be a place for us to do our food critic portion of our work, but we’ll be damned if we ever stop celebrating all that the Prairie food scene has to offer. To truly fall in love with where you’re from, we have found that travelling abroad certainly helps! Let us explain . . .

We’re both Saskatchewan transplants living in Alberta who have travelled the world for work and pleasure, separately and together, and what it comes down to is this: food is the focal point of our travels, and no matter where we’ve gone, the food we experience afar always connects us to home, from exquisite Chianina beef in Florence to an array of cheeses made by the owners of Pizza 4P’s in Ho Chi Minh City. Our forays, without fail, remind us of our diverse culinary scene across the Prairies.

Just as the best dishes abroad are made with local, seasonal ingredients, so too are the ones made back home. In 2017, Dan launched the Prairie Grid Dinner Series out of a desire to help unify the Prairie food community and help shine a light on the three provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) as a whole.

We both knew that there were innovative people working tirelessly in the major cities—smaller ones too, as well as towns across the provinces—but it was seldom that these people were ever given the opportunity to interact with each other, let alone cook together. Dan asked if I would come along for the wild ride that would be the inaugural Prairie Grid in 2017 with chefs Adam Donnelly, Lindsay Porter, Christie Peters, and Jamie Harling . . . and I said yes with no hesitation.

That series ran each subsequent year, shifting course through the pandemic, but staying true to the concept of taking seasonal ingredients, putting them in the hands of talented cooks and letting them feed people. Dan decided that the hashtag #proudtobe­prairie was fitting for that first travelling dinner series, and it carried on every year that followed. But it also became a regular tag that we include in many of our social media posts outside of the series. We use it because it’s true.

We’re proud too, of this book. Some of the recipes are from chefs involved in those Prairie Grid dinners, others are from chefs we’ve written about, and a few are from friends we’ve worked with in the food industry on other projects. Dan and I have included our own family recipes and many new ones, too, that help showcase Prairie-grown ingredients in a new light, but regardless of who wrote the recipe, each one is intended for the home cook.

You will notice that some spring recipes call for frozen, dried, or cellared ingredients like root vegetables and dried fruit. That’s because the Prairie provinces have a shorter growing season than most of Canada, and despite the notion of spring being the season of birth and renewal, not much grows here until June—rhubarb and asparagus being the usual mid-May exceptions.

Our parents and grandparents were conscientious consumers, and these crab apples didn’t fall far from those trees, so you’ll see that we include some tips for decreasing food waste and include the use of uncommon parts of the animal, like tongue, flank, and neck, in some recipes. Things that often get thrown away, like stale bread and bones, still have value, and we address that too.

Speaking of value, pulses are not only a significant source of vitamins and minerals, but they also contain a good amount of fibre and protein, which means you don’t have to eat a lot to feel full. They also cost pennies per pound, so if you’re looking to cut your grocery bill and/or your meat consumption, look for our recipes that use dried beans, peas, and lentils.

We hope that using this cookbook will inspire you to embrace the seasons, from a food standpoint. We hope the content within will open conversations around the table about the importance of supporting local producers—the ranchers and beekeepers; the pulse producers and mustard growers; the crop, dairy, fruit, and vegetable farmers—and those committed to working with the fruits of their labour: the grain millers and distillers; the brewers, butchers, and bakers; and the artisan cheese and sausage makers.

We have good reason to be proud of being “Prairie”; there is much to be thankful for. Now, let’s get cooking!

Editorial Reviews

Prairie proves that Prairie food is relevant, modern, and delicious and should be in the kitchen of Canadians across the country. Their easy-to-accomplish and rewarding recipes highlight the heart that is the essence of the Prairies. Save your pickle brine and get cooking.”
—LUCY WAVERMAN, food columnist for The Globe and Mail, food writer, and cookbook author

“The Prairie cuisine dream team of Twyla and Dan takes us on a delicious journey through the oft-overlooked culinary bounty of the Canadian Prairies. Cook and eat your way through the seasons with a wide array of approachable recipes that showcase why those of us who live here are so darn ‘proud to be prairie’.”
—KARLYNN JOHNSTON, author of The Prairie Table and Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky

“Dan and Twyla have done a superb job of interpreting the best of prairie food in a modern style with a nod to tradition, yet without falling into the folksy image we have of these under-appreciated regions, with their unique ingredients and multicultural cuisine.”
—LESLEY CHESTERMAN, author of Make Every Dish Delicious

“Rarely do you find a cookbook that authentically meets at the intersection of international cuisine and local ingredients. Prairie showcases how resource-rich Canada is and how to fully appreciate all that’s produced—in a delicious way!”
—ARLENE DICKINSON, entrepreneur and venture capitalist

“Twyla Campbell and Dan Clapson elevate local and seasonal ingredients with a Prairie twist that both inspires and educates the hungry soul.”
—LIANE FAULDER, journalist, food writer, and culinary tour leader

Prairie is plant-forward, environmentally aware, and inspired by what the Prairies offer. Filled with simple recipes, it is a celebration and homage to Canada's greatest grassland.”
—MIJUNE PAK, judge on Top Chef Canada and Iron Chef Canada

“Dan and Twyla have captured the beauty of the Prairies within the pages of this book. I’m blown away by the sheer number and variety of recipes—I can’t wait to start cooking!”
—ANDREW PHUNG, lover of food, but also actor/comedian (Run the Burbs, Kim’s Convenience)

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