Every year, Canada celebrates its food writers and cookbook authors at the Canadian Culinary Book Awards. In the past, the awards were filmed for the Food Network Canada’s “At the Table With…” bio doc series where Vancouver-based Vikram Vij took the top honour in his category for his cookbook, “Vij’s.” This, the award’s 12th year saw a packed house gathered at The Royal Winter Fair in early November to laud other culinary lights from across the country.
The awards happened on the same day that The Duchess of Cornwall and The Prince of Wales had their much talked about tour of the fair. And while the Royals didn’t attend the awards, the nominees and category winners were as warmly received as the bluebloods.
Canadian Culinary Landmarks Hall of Fame Award
Since last April, a number of Canada's top food professionals have been reading and testing their way through more than 50 entries to determine the winners for the Canadian Culinary Book Awards. Cuisine Canada and the University of Guelph opened the awards with the new Canadian Culinary Landmarks Hall of Fame award that was awarded to Toronto-based writer and culinary historian, Elizabeth Driver. Her book, Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825–1949 (University of Toronto Press, Toronto) was written up this past summer in Saveur Magazine. The almost tearful Driver told the audience that it took her twenty years of work to complete this book using the University of Guelph’s comprehensive Canadian cookbook collection. “I wanted to recognize Canada’s culinary heroes” explained Driver, “and to share Canada’s long-lived, grassroots food culture.”
English Category Winners
English Cookbook Category winners included: Small Plates for Sharing by Laurie Stempfle, Ed. (Company’s Coming Publishing Limited, Edmonton) who won Gold and The Complete Canadian Living Baking Book: The Essentials of Home Baking by Elizabeth Baird (Transcontinental Books, Montreal) who won Silver. Jennifer McLagan’s “Fat- An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient With Recipes” won Honourable Mention.
In the English Special Interest Category that covers books about food and beverages, but not cookbooks, were: Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid who won Gold for Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China (Random House Canada, Toronto), and Taras Grescoe who won Silver for Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, Toronto).
And In French
In the French Language category’s Best Cookbook of the Year, The Food Network Canada’s Ricardo Larrivée won Gold for his “Parce qu’on a tous de la visite” and Chef Jean-Paul Grappe for his ode to preparing wild game, “Gibier- à Poil et à Plume.”
Cuisine Canada’s Founders Award Goes To...Judy Creighton- the intrepid reporter for AP based out of Hamilton, Ontario was also awarded Cuisine Canada’s Founders Award. This award is given on occasion to Canadians who have achieved a lifetime of service to the culinary community of Canada and may be from any field of culinary endeavour.
The awards wrapped with a reception in the nearby Café Soleil where The Ancaster Old Mill’s Jeff Crump’s team prepared a wild mushroom and cauliflower risotto, Café Borealis offered an Elk Ragout over noodles and Wanda’s Pie in the Sky put the finishing sweet touch to the reception with sour cherry tartlets. As the new chair of the awards, Fiona Lucas and others echoed that day, it’s their hope that food writers and cooks across Canada are “inspired to write” so that they too can take their rightful place amongst previous winners.
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