Take one batch of historic recipes, add a handful of local, inspired chefs, mix well, and serve up a modern version of Nova Scotia culinary history. To create this book, food writer and editor Valerie Mansour reviewed the Nova Scotia Archives's What's Cooking? digital collection and, along with their staff, pulled out a cross-section of recipes dating back as far as The Halifax Gazette of 1765, and featuring material from wartime newspaper supplement recipes, community cookbooks, and more. Taste of Nova Scotia then matched recipes with Nova Scotia chefs and food-industry specialists, who put a modern twist on the recipes. Using their expertise, today's food styles, and local ingredients, top chefs from across the province have recreated everything from classic seafood dishes like planked salmon and fish chowder to time-honoured favourites like brown bread and baked beans, with items like Irish potato pudding, rabbit stew with bannock, Gaelic fruitcake, and rappie pie showcasing the province's multicultural and ever-evolving foodways.

Features over 80 recipes, full-colour photos of the dishes in historic Nova Scotia settings from photographer Len Wagg and stylist Jessica Emin, as well as fascinating archival materials.

Valerie Mansour is a writer, editor, and documentary film researcher. She writes food features for East Coast Living magazine, profiles new arrivals for Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS), and has researched over 35 film documentaries and series. Valerie was a freelance print and radio journalist for many years and reviewed restaurants for Halifax's Daily News and Metro. She published Alexandra's Lebanese Cooking in 1983.

Valerie Mansour's profile page

• Short-listed, Gourmand International Culinary Awards

The book is greatly enhanced by archival photos of Nova Scotia and gorgeous food photography ... The past and present come together here for a delicious culinary adventure. —Publishers Weekly

"I would even recommend this book to non-cooks — for the beauty of food photographs, the settings, and the poetry of various chefs' discussion of how they approached their recipe." —Rural Delivery, Book Review