As a longtime Whitehorse resident, Michele Genest has spent the better part of the past 20 years, researching and writing about – not to mention eating – the native foods of Canada's North.
Her latest cookbook, The Boreal Feast, is the follow-up to her bestselling cookbook The Boreal Gourmet, which received silver in Taste Canada’s Food Writing Awards in 2011. Genest’s new book focuses on seasonal feasts, exploring how cultures across the North, from the Yukon to Scandinavia, use boreal ingredients like lingonberries, wild mushrooms, herbs, flowers, game, and fish in traditional and contemporary feasts and celebrations.
WE Vancouver spoke to Genest about her love for the food, as well as the people and the environment, of the subarctic north.
For many who live in Canada's south, the North is more of a romantic concept than an actual place. What drew you to the North, and what keeps you there?
I came to Whitehorse in 1994 to spend the summer with my sister, who came in 1988 to spend the summer with her friend. We both fell in love with the North. When we were kids in Toronto my family spent our weekends skiing near Collingwood; we’d say we were “going up north.” North is always a relative term. But the Yukon felt like the real thing, the same way London did the first time I went there as a young woman. There’s a feeling of being at the source of the myth. I came in summer, but winter keeps me here.
How does day-to-day life in Northern Canada differ from the romantic notions?
From my small patch of the Yukon, the short answer is not much, and a lot. The romantic notions are all true: Dog sledding, furry parkas, skiing, cabin life, fierce summers, long winters, thousands of years of First Nations history and tradition, close-knit community life. But, so is the threat of fracking, community strife, big trucks, habitat destruction, residential school fall-out, successful First Nations self-government, poverty, homelessness, lack of food security, a growing local food scene, tons of art and music, great coffee, great local beer, a food bank, a very successful local airline that’s 49 per cent First Nations-owned and flies to major Canadian cities—I could go on.
You traveled to the boreal forest in Scandinavia for the book, visiting Norway, Sweden, and Finland. What are some of the similarities in the landscape, environment, and culture that you encountered there? What stood out as being markedly different?
The biggest difference is the built landscape – in the Canadian north towns and cities are young and tend to sprawl. By contrast the human presence in Scandinavia is neat and organized. The wild berries in the Scandinavian boreal forest are huge and plentiful – the happy effect of the Gulf Stream. Picking berries, and foraging for mushrooms is a passion there; foraging in Sweden is a legal right. In the Canadian north caribou are wild; in the Scandinavian north Sami people herd reindeer. You can buy reindeer meat and reindeer blood in the supermarkets. The homesteading past is very close to the surface.
What are some of the fundamental differences between the diet of those living in the Northern boreal forest and the rest of Canada?
In Canada, the farther north you go the more expensive food becomes. Outside the major centres, access to fresh, affordable food is difficult and sporadic. Some communities no longer have a grocery store. In response, communities are starting to build green houses and establish market gardens. Berries, wild herbs, wild meat, and fish are an important and delicious part of the diet. But, as in the rest of Canada, we’re addicted to empty calories; junk food, packaged food. In our defense, that’s often what’s available. It has been said many times; we need a national food policy, we need to change the way we produce and distribute food.
The ingredients included in many of the recipes are commonplace in the North. How can Canadians in the South source these items?
I list a couple of sources in the back of the book, linking to companies that gather and sell the wild herbs of the boreal forest. Birch syrup is becoming more readily available in Canada; there are producers in the Yukon, NWT, BC, Ontario, and Quebec. In each recipe I offer suggestions for substitutions. But, the important thing, and the thing I hope for, is that people are inspired to find the wild ingredients in their own region, substituting and experimenting and discovering their own favourites.
Is there a particular recipe or feast from the book you would count as your favourite?
My favourite changes with the season – at the moment, because it’s fall, and because I’m planning to travel there again in February, I’m remembering Scandinavia and the people we met there with great fondness. So my favourite feast today is the Thanksgiving Feast for Four, inspired by a friend we made in Norbotten, Sweden: Ruffed grouse with Madeira and low bush cranberry sauce, potatoes mousseline, braised cabbage, and Saskatoon berry and BC Ambrosia apple upside down cake for dessert. It’s hard to find grouse or low bush cranberries in the city, but try substituting local, humanely-raised duck and dried BC cherries.
• Genest will be in Vancouver Sept. 27 to speak about the food of the boreal forest and give a cooking demonstration at 2pm at Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks (1740 West 2nd). Tickets are $30 and include a copy of The Boreal Feast. Call 604-688-6755 to register. Genest will also be appearing at the Book Warehouse on Broadway (632 West Broadway) on Sept. 29 at 5:30pm.
