Suzanne and her year-long First We Eat experience are in the current issue of Up Here Magazine, available at news stands now. 
This coming weekend (Sep. 13-15) in Whitehorse, Growers of Organic Food Yukon will host the second in their series of Food Talks, titled All the Bits. As part of the activities, Suzanne will be on hand Saturday afternoon at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre (KDCC) from 1 to 5 p.m. at a special Open House to talk about the First We Eat project and her experiences from her family’s year of eating locally. Suzanne will be joined in the Open House by Canadian author and chef Jennifer McLagan.
Fall in the Yukon is just one of the million reasons I love living here. The spectacular undulating carpet of yellows and reds and greens takes my breath away every year. And it’s cranberry season!
High bush cranberries for juicing and low bush cranberries, also known as lingonberries, for almost anything else – pies, muffins, scones, pancakes, jam, jelly, chutney, and delicious cranberry sauce. I became addicted to the low bush cranberry when I lived in Newfoundland where they are known as partridge berries. They are excellent keepers for the winter as they sweeten, not soften, with freezing.
Last year was a very poor wild berry season. Thanks to the generosity of many Dawson berry pickers and some careful rationing I had just enough cranberries to get us through. This year is better and I am rejoicing in the ability to pick buckets full of cranberries once again.
Check out the Boreal Gourmet, Miche Genest’s, recipe for Low Bush Cranberry Toffee touted as “The Best Toffee in the History of the World!” Or Cranberry Birch Syrup Sauce to serve on Token Gesture Custard or ice cream.
Eating local is often associated with a desire for produce that is organic, meaning it is grown on a sustainable scale without the use of non-chemical fertilizers. In many ways this is a direct reaction to the perceived negative effects of the large-scale, industrialized agriculture that has become the norm for North America’s food industry. Consumers have learned to look for products that are certified organic, but for farmers looking to join this rapidly-growing market, there have been many obstacles to successfully achieving certification.
The Canadian Organic Growers recently conducted a two-year study called “Transitioning to Organic: A Risk-Based Analysis.” Their study showed that Canadians want organic products and that concern about agriculture’s impact on the land and environment is driving this demand. Yet the increasing demand is not being matched by domestic supply, and Canadian farmers are struggling to benefit from the market opportunities of transitioning to organic production.
So what’s holding them back? According to the study, there are several factors, including the bureaucratic need for new record keeping, lack of experience with organic techniques for weed management and increasing yields, and an inability to tap into the supply chain for the new markets.
Of particular interest for Canada’s North, the report recommends that small-scale farmers join together to tackle processing infrastructure and joint marketing efforts.
Such market development efforts could exploit greater local organic production in areas with lower population density. Supply-chain development could also be advanced by developing infrastructure needed for processing of organic food, including small abattoirs, feed mills, or organic fruit processing facilities.
> Read the full COG report here
I am struggling with grocery store food.
My tentative and gradual re-introduction to store-bought food switched to full-on immersion two weeks ago when we left the Yukon and headed to a cottage in southern Canada.
The transition was not easy.
First, there is the psychological component. For one year I quite successfully convinced my brain that food from afar is off limits. This remains my knee-jerk reaction and it has been difficult to give myself permission to try it.
I expected the re-introduction to a wide variety of new foods would be a taste explosion. But it hasn’t been. Things taste exactly how I remember them, and it’s not all that satisfying. Maybe it’s a sign that my local food is pretty darn flavourful in its own right! Smells are tantalizing, but the tastes often don’t live up to the smell.
Sugar has been the craziest phenomenon. Things I used to love, now taste sickly sweet. I get the same ‘I don’t feel so good’ feeling after one bite of a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie that I used to get overindulging on six of them. It astounds me that, once upon a time, my body felt that six cookies worth of sugar consumption was totally reasonable.
Salt creeps up on me in surprising places. Store bought bread is too salty, as is butter and cheese. But a nacho chip tastes like it should.
Despite the saltiness, bread products taste incredibly bland.
It hasn’t all been disappointing. I reclaimed a love for the avocado. I was able to indulge in sushi again, which is as delicious as it used to be. Fresh local southern fruit such as peaches and concord grapes were definitely a treat and fresh-from-the-field Ontario corn is as sweet as candy.
However, on the ‘grocery store food diet,’ I was often hungry and never quite satisfied. I found myself longing for some of my old staples. I started poaching myself eggs for breakfast so I didn’t have to suffer through a bowl of cereal or another baked good. One sip of wine literally went straight to my head. Water and milk were really the only drinks I could tolerate. The once-loved Sanpellegrino tasted way too sweet. Dilution became my friend. A couple of tablespoons of the Sanpellegrino added to a tall glass of sparkling water felt like a reasonable treat.
Gradually my tolerance for sugar and carbs started to increase. Popsicles didn’t seem to bother me and two pieces of chocolate no longer made me feel sickly. I couldn’t handle a butter tart but a Tim Horton’s old fashioned plain donut was going down quite easily and left me craving another.
Before my body adjusts back to old habits, I want to put on the brakes. I’ve just returned home and am looking forward to eating local foods again. I believe my body is telling me something when half a cookie makes me feel sick. Surely it can’t be good to consume as much sugar and carbs as I once did.
Today I stood on the scale. No change in my weight, but there is a new roll around my middle that I’m not so happy with. So don’t get too used to sugar, oh pancreas of mine – we’re going back to local Dawson food!
