Canadian Culinary Book Awards Winners Announced

Here are some inspiring reads (and good Christmas gifts too).
Posted by Jennifer

November 2, 2007 - (GUELPH, ON) Some of Canada’s top food professionals spent their summer at their stoves testing recipes and evaluating culinary books from more than 50 entrants and now Cuisine Canada and the University of Guelph are proud to announce the winners of the 10 th annual Canadian Culinary Book Awards.

Winners in the English Cookbook Category are:

• Gold: Vij’s: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala (Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., Vancouver)

• Silver: Lucy’s Kitchen: Signature Recipes and Culinary Secrets by Lucy Waverman (Random House Canada, Toronto)

Winners in the English Special Interest Category, books about food, but not cookbooks, are:

• Gold: Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World’s Most Seductive Sweet by Carol Off (Random House Canada, Toronto)
• Silver: Red, White, and Drunk All Over: a Wine Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass by Natalie Maclean (Doubleday Canada, Toronto)

Winners for the English Canadian Food Culture Category, books that best illustrate Canada’s rich culinary heritage and food culture are:

• Gold: Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore: A Culinary History of Canada by Dorothy Duncan (Dundurn Press, Toronto)
• Silver: Hearth and Home: Women and the Art of Open Hearth Cooking by Fiona Lucas (James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers, Toronto)

The contest was also open to Canadian French-language culinary books.

Winners in the French Cookbook Category are:

• Gold: Á table en famille: recettes et stratégies pour relever le défi by Marie Breton and Isabelle Emond (Flammarion Québec, Montreal)

• Silver: Nutrition gourmande: propos et recettes by Isabelle Huot and Thierry Daraize (Les Éditions Publistar, Outremont, Quebec)

Winners in the French Special Interest Category, books about food, but not cookbooks, are:

• Gold: Couleur champagne by Chrystine Brouillet and Guénaël Revel (Flammarion Québec, Montreal)

• Silver: Cuisiner avec les aliments contre le cancer by Richard Béliveau and Denis Gingras (Éditions du Trécarré, Outremont, Quebec)

The Winner for the French Canadian Food Culture Category, books that best illustrate Canada’s rich culinary heritage and food culture is:

• Gold: Au Pied de Cochon:L’Album by Martin Picard (Restaurant Au Pied De Cochon, Montreal)

Cuisine Canada is a national alliance of Canadian culinary professionals who share a common desire to encourage the development, use and recognition of fine Canadian food and beverages. The University of Guelph has for more than 140 years contributed to Canadian cuisine in its programs in agriculture, food science, hospitality and tourism management and is the home of one of Canada’s best cookbook collections.

The Canadian Culinary Book awards are sponsored by: Lead Sponsor: Delta Chelsea Hotel, Platinum Sponsors: CanolaInfo, Chicken Farmers of Canada and Harbinger Communications. The award’s ceremony and reception is supported by: Beef Information Centre, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, George Brown College, Inniskillin, Liaison College and Sleeman Breweries Ltd.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Sofia Hondrogiannis, Harbinger Communications

(416) – 960 – 5100 x 248

Sofie@Harbingerideas.com

Book recommendation

Hi everybody,

I hope that things are going well for everybody in the food writing world!

Me, being the food history buff that I am, have found a fantastic book that some of you may be interested in having a look at. It's called "Food: The History of Taste". It's edited by Paul Freedman and published by the University of California Press. I found it at the U of A bookstore. It's a collection of essays written by food history scholars. Each chapter focuses on a different period of time: it runs the gamut from the hunter-gatherers of pre-history up to the molecular cuisine movement of the 1990's.

One of the interesting points of the book is the exploration of the sweet/savoury dichotomy. (I believe that it was JoLynn who was interested in this?) As it turns out, there was traditionally no distinction between the two before the mid-seventeenth century. During the medieval and Renaissance times, sugar was such an expensive and rare commodity that it was added to absolutely everything, including things that we would think of now as inherently savory, like stews, soups, and even roast meats. The distinction between sweet and savoury really took off when sugar cane began to be imported from the Carribean in mass quantities. As the author puts it, "...one of the odder consequences... was that sweetness was increasingly relegated to fewer dishes, although a much greater amount of sugar was now used in those dishes that were thought of as 'sweet' ".

Happy reading!

Lisa

Word of the Year: Locavore!

The Oxford American Dictionary just announced its pick for the word of the year...and it's a food word. This info may come in handy for any of you (and me) pitching a story about "eating locally." You can read the whole story at http://blog.oup.com/2007/11/locavore/.

--Jennifer

Culinary Historians of Canada org

Hi again,

I should mention that I thought that most of you would be interested in the "obvious" choices in food writing: restaurant reviews and trend-based articles. That said, I was thrilled that you had interest in culinary memoir, cookbook writing, etc.

I just got my latest issue of the "Culinary Chronicles: The Newsletter of the Culinary Historians of Ontario" and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in knowing about this group. I believe that the group is going national, in other words, their field of interest has broadened coast to coast.

Memberships are cheap at $30 / year and you get a newsletter with interesting historical recipes, articles and newsy bits. For more information, head to the Culinary Historian's website.

The newsletter welcomes items for the newsletter. Just check with the editors to see if your idea is a fit.

Welcome to Eat Your Words' GMCC WRIT0155(570)'s Blogspace

Hi all,

Here's our blog space where we can continue our energetic discussions aboutfood, food writing, wine writing and anything else we covered in class.

First of all, I saw Judy Schultz at the Slow Food Edmonton annual holiday brunch today and she mentioned that her book Nibbles and Feasts is now "owned" by Blue Couch Books. So I will contact them to see if there are still copies in print or how you can order this book if you wish. It's a great example of family memoir food writing and I think you'd all enjoy reading it.

I also realize that there were a few questions that we just didn't get around to answering on Saturday...so if you could please remind me of them...I'll do my best to give you some answers.

I really enjoyed our discussions, and I hope that they continue on this blog, or by personal email, by phone or in person.

This will also be a great place to help one another hone those food story ideas, craft a pitch that sells and boast about any successes that we have as a result.

So let's get the ball rolling...fire off any comments or questions.