food – Page 25 – Sheryl Kirby

Fortified

It’s no secret that I am adamantly against processed food products that make health claims. And my post about added pro-biotics in yogurt still gets numerous hits each day, which makes me think that this is an issue that confuses the average consumer.

Health and nutrition are hot topics, and large food processors have figured out that anything with an aura of health around it sells better. This phenomenon is actually called the “health halo” or “health aura”, and stems from the fact that people will eat (and by extension, purchase) more of a product that they believe to be healthful. This leads to additional health problems as consumers end up taking in greater numbers of calories, fat, sugar and salt, defeating any impression of healthfulness the food might have had.

Currently, labelling laws in Canada prohibit a great number of these products from being fortified with unnecessary vitamins, and also prohibit those same companies from making health claims. Manufacturers, hoping to target a health-oriented society by fortifying products that are essentially junk food, are pushing Health Canada to speed up the decision-making process that would see these fortified products, emblazoned with health claims, on supermarket shelves.

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Elegant Whimsy – Food and Fun at Trevor Kitchen bar

Trevor Kitchen and Bar
38 Wellington Street East
416-941-9410

The entrance way to Trevor Kitchen and Bar reminds me of a Goth club. There’s a shiny red motorcycle situated just inside the door and dark stairs lead down into a candlelit room. Seriously, I’m expecting to hear some Bauhaus as I descend into what food critics referred to as a “subterranean grotto” when the space first opened in late 2006.

Despite the white walls, both the long bar area and the adjacent dining room are dim, with candles and ceiling pot lights creating ambient shadows across the 150-year-old stone walls. It’s a potentially intimidating space, but prospective diners shouldn’t be scared of the dark, because the team in the kitchen have prepared a seasonal bistro menu that is akin to your Mom wrapping you in a big hug and then serving you Sunday dinner. If your Mom was fancy and cooked foie gras.

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Cheese Please – The Ontario Cheese Society Artisan Cheese Market and Tasting

First of all, an apology. When I find myself in a room surrounded by artisanal cheese, my note-taking skills go right out the window, so while I have lovely pictures of cheese for readers to enjoy, pairing them up with the appropriate cheesemakers might be difficult, especially because we were sampling from more than one place at a time.

The images below were taken at the Ontario Cheese Society Artisan Market and Tasting last Tuesday at Hart House. The market follows a day-long conference of Ontario cheesemakers and Ontario Cheese Society members in which they discuss all things related to cheese in Ontario. In the evening a number of the cheesemakers offer samples and items for sale – as many of the cheeses on offer are very rare, this is an exciting event for those of us who love eating the stuff.

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Two Meals

Most of us, if we’re lucky, eat three times a day – or more. We can look at this activity as either a chore, or a joy. We can take pleasure in every flavour, every spice, every texture and smell, or we can look at eating as something we have to do to stay alive, but man, doesn’t it get tedious after a while?

Recently, I had the opportunity to experience both ends of the spectrum.

April marked the 20th anniversary of the last time I had eaten at McDonald’s. I wanted to mark the occasion in some way but none of the options were appealing – especially the ones that might get me arrested. Instead I chose to do the most radical thing I could think of, which was to go and eat a meal at McDonald’s. Heck, I’ve eaten bull’s testicles, it couldn’t be that bad, could it? And to counter the McDonald’s meal, a few days later I would be attending the Slow Food Banchetto feast, a five-course meal created by 25 of Toronto’s top chefs.

The McDonald’s meal, as expected, was disgusting. The burgers were greyish brown and had the spongy texture of crepe soles on a pair of shoes. The McChicken sandwich was bland and beige and resembled a flat disc of breaded particleboard (which would have been more palatable, knowing how mechanically-deboned chicken is actually made). The fries smelled and tasted of rancid grease. The fruit pies were spit out and thrown away, they were so soggy and bland. The first few bites of the meal took me hurtling back to 1989, when this was something I would have described as delicious, but my grown-up self could not stomach that food or the hard seats, bright lights, chaotic service area or the aura of sadness and defeat that permeated the restaurant.

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Gather Round the Table

I haven’t met anyone who isn’t just a little bit sceptical of the communal dining trend, except perhaps restaurateurs who have added a communal table in the hopes of using it for either large groups or stragglers. For most of us, our inclination when going out to eat is to dine and talk with the people we came with. Strangers can be, well… strange, and dining with people we don’t know – people who might have odd table manners, or smell funny, or natter on and on about some topic we have no interest in – can make an otherwise lovely evening turn out to be a bust.

Communal dining isn’t a new idea, though, it’s as old as the discovery of fire when prehistoric man gathered round a single heat source to cook food. Even without the restaurant trend, it exists today in the form of dinner parties, bed and breakfasts,wedding banquets and office lunches. We eat together to celebrate an occasion, to get to know one another, to strengthen bonds. And often we find ourselves eating with people who start out as strangers but who are friends, or at least acquaintances, by the time dessert is cleared.

Despite being a curmudgeon and a bit of a misanthrope, I find myself at a communal table at least once a month, often more. Most of the time, the dinners I attend are comprised of other food writers; colleagues who have been invited to cover the event or a specific product. But I’ve also been to plenty of dinners that are purely social, because I am interested in the food, or the experience.

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On the Shelf – April 26th

As someone with a love of food, I’m always poking around in shops looking for new things to taste and try. And to share. On the Shelf is a new (-ish – we did one back in December) monthly feature in which we share our great food finds for the month.

Alphanso Mangoes
If you’ve never eaten an Alphanso mango, you don’t know what you’re missing. Not to be confused with the Mexican Atulfo mango which can be found in grocery stores from late February onwards, Alphanso mangoes come from southern India and are available only from early April to mid May. In Toronto, they can usually only be found is various shops in Little India, so head on over to Gerrard Street East and stop by Toronto Cash and Carry(1405 Gerrard Street East) or Koohinoor Foods (1438 Gerrard Street East) to try some. Alphansos are generally available by the box only (either a half or whole dozen) and 12 of them will run somewhere around $24. At $2 a piece – and smaller than the Atulfo, this might seem like an exorbitant price until you taste them, and then all other mangoes will be dead to you. A combination of floral and spice, Alphanso mangoes are juicy, heady and fragrant. (I’ve recently found canned Alphanso mangoes at my local supermarket – will report on those next month.)

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Around the World and Back in Time at Butler’s Pantry

Butler’s Pantry
371 Roncesvalles Avenue
416-537-7750
Brunch/lunch for two with all taxes, tip and soda: $30

This is supposed to be a brunch review. You’d know that because it’s Sunday. Except it’s not a brunch review because we didn’t actually eat brunch. Upon arriving at the Roncesvalles location of Butler’s Pantry we decided we weren’t really in the mood for typical brunch fare. Instead we decided to revisit some old favourites for a trip down memory lane.

That’s not to say that Butler’s Pantry doesn’t offer a decent brunch card. Although it’s been probably 7 or 8 years since I’ve had the dish, their French toast ($7.25) is still renowned, and I’m momentarily chagrined at my decision to have an entrée when a plate of the massive fluffy fried bread goes past. The rest of the brunch offerings (offered until 2pm on weekdays and 4pm on weekends) include a variety of omlettes ($6.25 – $8.25), eggs Benedict ($7.25, $8.75 with smoked salmon), and scrambled eggs ($8.95).

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Innoculation – or, How Food Bloggers Can and Should Arm Themselves Against Viral Marketers

If you’ve never received one, then consider yourself lucky. If you’re a recipe blogger, you might never know the greasy, depressing feeling of opening up your email inbox to be assaulted with fake flattery and a patronizing cut and paste formula-based invitation. But eventually, because that’s their whole premise, the viral marketing companies will get to most of us, luring innocent food bloggers with flattery and booze, hoping you’ll sell your soul for a party and a gift bag, or some free samples.

While not a new phenomenon, in the age of the internet, viral marketing has become more and more pervasive. The original viral marketers used kids to inadvertently sell their products – put a pair of (free) fancy sneakers on the feet of the most popular kid in the school and watch as his classmates flocked to the store to buy the same gear. It works for clothes, technology (“hey, cool phone!”) and even vehicles – Torontonians should wonder any time they see a shiny new scooter parked on a sidewalk in front of a hip club or restaurant.

At its heart, viral marketing is about manipulation. This website outlines the six simple principles of viral marketing…

Gives away products or services
Provides for effortless transfer to others
Scales easily from small to very large
Exploits common motivations and behaviors
Utilizes existing communication networks
Takes advantage of others’ resources

From the standpoint of the food blogger, it is important to be aware of these principles if you regularly receive offers of free products or invitations to promotional events.

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Mango Season

In our supermarket society, we sort of take for granted that all produce will be accessible at all times. And while the idea of seasonality is becoming more prevalent for locally-grown foods, we tend to not think of things like oranges, pineapples or mangoes as having a season, when in fact, they do.

For a brief period of about 6 weeks from the beginning of April to mid-May, Alphonso (aka. Alphanso) mangoes are in season in India.

The only place in Toronto to get them is Little India, where a number of the small grocery stores carry them. Available in boxes of either 6 or a dozen, Alphonso mangoes are not cheap. We paid $23.99 for a box of 12. They’re also smaller than the average mango, but what they lack in size, they make up for in flavour.

Even unpeeled, the bowl of mangoes fills my kitchen with their scent. Cut open they smell both floral and spicy at the same time. It is said that once you eat an Alphonso mango, you’ll never go back to those hard stringy yellow ones. Sometimes an Atulfo (the Mexican variety) will suffice – again if they’re in season, which is only a few weeks before the Alphonsos come to town – but nothing compares to the flavour of these luscious mangos flown in from India.

Yes, I know, they’ve got a scary food miles number. I don’t care – I eat them once a year, and forsake mangoes for the rest of the year. (Actually, I just found canned Alphonso mangos at my supermarket. Once the fresh ones are done we’ll crack open the can and see if they compare.)

The only problem with Alphonso mangoes is that they don’t have a very long shelf life. Which means we’ve been eating the things at every meal to use them up before they go bad. For breakfast yesterday, I sliced them and served them on top of coconut rice pudding. Today we ate them with oatmeal.

There’s only a few left. Fingers crossed the canned ones are just as good as fresh so I can have Alphonsos year-round.

Eating at the Kids’ Table

Getting kids interested in food seems to be a growing trend, with articles about parents taking their kids to fine dining restaurants or enrolling them in kids’ cooking classes popping up in publications right across North America, with opinion split on whether it’s a positive development.

But once kids hit their teenage years, dining out at restaurants is something that can not only be an enjoyable way to socialize, but a great way to learn about new foods and new cultures.

For the past few weeks, and continuing into early May, kids in grades 7 and 8 from Parkdale Public School have joined members of the arts collective Mammalian Diving Reflex for a series of dinners in restaurants in Parkdale and along Queen Street West called Eat the Street. Part performance art happening and part a lesson in food, culture and etiquette, the kids have the opportunity to act as restaurant reviewers, critiquing the food, service, and atmosphere of a space that is more than likely foreign to them. The idea is to watch how the kids interact with the restaurant and how the restaurant, including staff and other patrons, interact with them.

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