A Taste of the Maritimes: Local, Seasonal Recipes the Whole Year Round

By Elisabeth Bailey

Explore the flavors of Canada’s Maritime Provinces with this cookbook full of fresh takes on farm-to-table favorites.
 
The contemporary cuisine of The Maritimes combines the region’s rich history of seasonal home-cooking with modern flavor influences from around the world. A Taste of the Maritimes is a collection of vibrant new recipes that showcase the bounty of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Author Elisabeth Bailey illuminates the joys of local, seasonal eating with photographs that capture the essence of local flavor.
 
Broken into five chapters—spring, early summer, late summer, fall, and winter—the book’s easy-to-follow recipes are interspersed with profiles of local farmers and suppliers including Fox Hill Cheese, Ironworks Distillery, and Speerville Flour Mill. With recipes such as Fiddleheads and Bacon in spring, Balsamic Honey Fruit Salad and Inside-Out Dragn Burgers in summer, Heritage Bean Chili in fall, and Slow-Roasted Turkey in Juniper Brine for the holidays, A Taste of the Maritimes celebrates the seasons in delectable style.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781771085342

Elisabeth Bailey

Elisabeth Bailey is the author of The Make-Ahead Sauce Solution, as well as two regional cookbooks, A Taste of the Maritimes and Maritime Fresh. She has worked as a chef and caterer and currently teaches classes on gardening, cooking, and preserving in and around Nova Scotia, Canada, where she lives.  

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Copyright © 2011, Elisabeth Bailey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.

Nimbus Publishing Limited

3731 Mackintosh St, Halifax, NS B3K 5A5

[phone] nimbus.ca

Printed and bound in Canada

Author photo: Nancy McCarthy

Interior and cover design: Kate Westphal

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bailey, Elisabeth

A taste of the Maritimes : local, seasonal recipes the whole year round / Elisabeth Bailey.

ISBN 978-1-55109-869-2 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77108-534-2 (HTML)

1. Cooking—Maritime Provinces.  2. Cookery,

Canadian—Maritime style.  3. Cookbooks— I. Title.

TX715.6.B32 2011           641.59715          C2011-903909-5

Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

Acknowledgements

I would like to first thank my husband, John Frauzel, without whose voluminous support and encouragement I would not be writing this today. My love and appreciation also goes to our dear son and my favourite sous-chef, Charlie Frauzel. I owe a special debt of thanks to three women: my photographer, Nancy McCarthy, whose creativity, hard work, and artistic vision were fundamental to bringing this project to completion; Joan Bruneau of Nova Terra Cotta Pottery, who generously offered the use of her exquisite pottery for our photo shoots; and Alice Burdick, who has been a wonderful friend, fellow writer, and champion of my work since the day I first conceived of a book about seasonal food in the Maritimes.

I am extremely obliged to the many friends, family, and food producers who have helped me along my path, especially Naomi King, my father Stephen Bailey, my aunt Sallea Wood, Mimi Fautley, Susan Bone, Susan Stephen, Bruce Wildsmith, Kevin Veinotte, Richard Wetmore, Lynne MacKay, Brian Boates, Joanne Schmidt, Carolyn VanDine, Fred Dollar, Jeanita Rand, Nilanjana Das, Faye Labelle, Svenja Dee, Ellen Agger, Meredith Bell, Heather McCallum, Mike Bienstock, and Shannon Sponagle.

Sincere and appreciative thanks go to Patrick Murphy, Kate Kennedy, and everyone else at Nimbus who offered me the chance to publish and nurtured the process with consummate professionalism. I would also like to thank all the fine folk at the Lunenburg and Mahone Bay farmers’ markets—they are too many to name, but too wonderful to omit.

Finally, I offer deep and abiding thanks to my mother, Susan Bailey, the person who taught me passion for good books—and, of course, how to cook.

Introduction

Local, seasonal eating is a great idea for many reasons. Consuming the highest quality, most nutritionally dense food you can find? Check. Promoting sustainable environmental practices in the face of uncertain times? Check. Supporting a locally based economy over international conglomerates? Check. Paying primarily for actual food rather than marketing, long-distance transportation, packaging, and storage? Check.

But when push comes to shove, there’s one reason that rises to the top of my list of reasons to eat locally and seasonally, and here it is:

Joy.

Eating healthy local foods makes my body more energetic—and life more enjoyable—every second of every day, not just when I’m at the table. What’s more, as I have become familiar with local food I’ve also developed a rich network of social connections through shopping at my local farmers’ market—an entire aspect of our community that I would completely miss out on if I bought all my groceries at the supermarket. I feel connected to the land and the people around me, and it makes me happy.

But most of all, fresh local food simply tastes better than its conventional counterparts. And not just a tad better, either; oceans and fields of pleasure better.

When it comes to increasing the joy of local and seasonal eating, though, we have a ways to go. Over 90 percent of food eaten in the Maritimes today is imported. At the same time, local farmers struggle to make their farms profitable while they produce healthy, fresh, delicious food for their neighbours and communities.

The good news is that the Maritime region is the very picture of a rich and eco-diverse local food system. Between the resources of our farms, forests, and waterways and the rich Maritime traditions of making and eating farm- and sea-fresh foods, our potential to feed ourselves is enormous. We simply have to make wise and full use of the resources already in our grasp.

For most people, this starts with buying more local food. While I strongly encourage people to visit their local farmers’ market if and when they can, I recognize that it’s not a possibility for everyone. Farm markets, CSAs (community supported agriculture), buying co-ops, and natural food stores are all great sources for local and seasonal foods. In addition, many local foods are available at supermarkets. The more people buy (and ask for), the more this trend will increase. Like any business, supermarkets want to meet their customers’ needs—so don’t be afraid to make your voice heard.

The following are recipes for everyday eating. They include sauces and stocks to freeze or use during busy times, an assortment of reasonably easy recipes for daily meals, and a few special dishes for the holidays. I warmly encourage you to double or triple recipes and freeze your leftovers—it’s a relatively low-effort way to make your own convenience food. You might not have the time to cook every evening, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy at least some local food every day.