Cedar and Salt: Vancouver Island Recipes from Forest, Farm, Field, and Sea

By DL Acken and Emily Lycopolus

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book that Shaped 2019
Winner of a 2019 Alcuin Society Award for Excellence in Book Design
Winner of a 2020 Gourmand World Cookbook Award in Canada
Finalist for a 2020 Taste Canada Award
Finalist for a 2020 BC Yukon Book Prize

Homegrown, modern recipes that feature the most treasured local ingredients from Vancouver Island’s forests, fields, farms and sea.

Off the shore of Canada’s west coast lies a food lover’s island paradise. Vancouver Island’s temperate climate nurtures a bounty of wild foods, heritage grains, organic produce, sustainable meats and artisan-crafted edible delights. This thoughtfully curated, beautifully photographed contemporary cookbook brings Vancouver Island’s abundant food scene into the kitchens of home cooks everywhere.

Whether it’s fresh blackberries, foraged chanterelles and fiddleheads, freshly harvested spot prawns or oysters, line-caught spring salmon, grass-fed beef, or cultivated foods like heritage red fife wheat, these recipes highlight the most sought-after ingredients on the island while honouring the producers and artisans dedicated to sustainable and ethical producing and harvesting.

Try recipes like Craft Beer–Braised Island Beef Brisket, Nettle and Chèvre Ravioli, and Beetroot and Black Walnut Cake featuring Denman Island Chocolate. Divided into four sections—forest, field, farm, and sea—Cedar and Salt places the most excellent local ingredients on a pedestal—and then onto your plate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Touchwood Editions
• Release date: Sep 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781771512954

DL Acken

Danielle (DL) Acken is a Canadian-born international food writer and photographer who splits her time between London, UK and her farm studio on Canada’s beautiful Salt Spring Island. See her work at dlacken.com.

Book preview

Title and author information over picture of deep blue waves. Cedar and Salt: Vancouver Island, Recipes from Forest, Farm, Field, and Sea. By DL Acken and Emily LycopolusDedications over a picture of a sunset over an ocean view. To James, who, more than anything or anyone else, makes this beautiful place where we live feel like home. - Danielle, To Grandpa Russel, Grandma Phoebe, and Mom. You instilled in me a love for this island that only continues to grow. Thank you for calling this place home. — Emily

Contents

Introduction

field

farm

forest

sea

Acknowledgements

Resources

Conversions Chart

Index

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Introduction

On a hot and dry mid-August day, I stood on the side of a quiet country road, picking and eating black­berries. I’d pick one for me, then one for the bucket. Then I’d pick two for me, and one for the bucket. At the age of five, I thought this approach worked well.

My family often visited my grandparents in Mill Bay, where we would forage for blackberries; it was, in fact, our tradition. The abundance of wild blackberries on Vancouver Island was and continues to be mind-boggling—we would fill buckets until the buckets overflowed, and still we would add even more. We knew the bucket was really full when the berries started settling and the weight of the ones on top crushed the bottom ones into juice.

Back at Grandma’s house, the berries from the tops of the buckets would be frozen on cookie sheets, then transferred to freezer bags for a winter indulgence, when I would savour them while dreaming of those hot summer days. The juicy berries at the bottom were transformed into succulent pies, blackberry apple jam, and preserves. The smell from all the baking and processing filled my grandma’s kitchen with an intoxicating aroma, and it was there that I fell in love with Vancouver Island.

Ever since then I have felt lucky to have roots in this unique and incredible place. The bounty that Vancouver Island provides is astounding: The cool, wet, misty winters create the perfect environment for kale and Swiss chard to grow year-round; the south-facing slopes of the Cowichan Valley are perfect for growing citrus, olives, and all sorts of exotic foods you’d be surprised to find in Canada; in the sheltered coves, crabs and prawns flourish; in the deep waters and rivers, salmon spawn.

Living off the land and cultivating a holistic, sustainable lifestyle is not only attainable on Vancouver Island, it’s a way of life available to all. Why get food from off the Island that has to be delivered to us by boat or plane when the prices found at local farmers markets are often on par with the grocery stores? Purchasing and supporting local producers is simple and rewarding, and grows a bustling local food economy. Here you can stroll through farmers markets in the summer, learn from passionate growers about their multicoloured carrots and purple peppers, and find classified ads that invite people to pick overly abundant apple or fig trees. I want to share this bounty and help you bring it home to your own kitchen. In these pages, I invite you to join me in the adventure of living and eating on this coast. We are incredibly blessed to live here, and my heart’s desire is to share with you the meaning of living, cooking, and eating on Canada’s Vancouver Island. —EL

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When I was a young girl, I thought the Old Island Highway went on forever, a long, seemingly endless, winding road. My family’s weekly journey from the Departure Bay ferry terminal to our cottage in Deep Bay regularly included the same, much-anticipated stops: a farm stand in Nanoose, where we’d buy greens and other field veggies; Parksville, for ice cream; Qualicum Village, for cheese and other assorted gourmet goodies and then a seafood lunch at the beach; Bowser for local bacon, eggs, and the ever-important fishing bait. It would take hours to reach our destination, but when we did we were laden with local goods, and our weekend routine could commence.

Dad would always start our Saturdays at the unimaginable hour of 4 am. With smiles and hot tea, he would shuffle us out to the boat, telling us, this is when the fish wake up, and I suppose I believed him because we were usually one of the only pleasure crafts in a sea of commercial boats heading out of the harbour to set our lines early and catch our fill before lunchtime. At a young age, I learned the best fishing practices throughout the Broughton Sound: head out at the crack of dawn for coho salmon along the lighthouse shore, then over to Norris Rocks in the lazy noonday sun for ling cod and other assorted rockfish, and then check the traps on the way home for a lucky catch of Dungeness crab.

Sometimes Dad would set up the little boat barbecue, and our lunch would come out of the sea and into the pan within three to four minutes of being caught. It was the freshest and most delicious fish you can imagine. Afterward, we’d head in for lazy walks along the shores of Fanny Bay, where Dad would scoop up oysters off the rocks and pop them open to slurp down their creamy flesh and briny liquor, being careful not to crunch into one of the few beautiful pearls he would sometimes hand to me. Then we’d go back to the cabin for leisure time, a stroll down to the marina store, or, in the high summer, endless hours of berry picking and foraging in the small ravine beside the house. If we were lucky, Dad would take us up to Comox for dinner at The Old House where local beef was on the menu.

This was my childhood away from school and the normal comings and goings of life in the city. These trips planted the seeds for a lifetime connection between place and food, which took root and grew deep within my being. Now, when I think about those places on the Island, there is a direct link in my brain between their names and the flavours that come along with them: Parksville and Coombs are dairy-rich and sweet, like ice cream; Qualicum is salty, like its glorious cheese and clams and freshly baked bread; Deep Bay, Fanny Bay, and Union Bay are briny like the oysters and fish they harbour; and the Comox Valley is fertile and hearty, like its grass-fed beef.

Long before the new inland highway began to shuttle goods at lightning speed up and down Vancouver Island, people looked locally for these foods, always readily available around them. Importing from the Mainland can be expensive, thus meats reared at local farms, vegetables swapped for eggs over neighbouring fences, and a bounty of readily available seafood became staples of the daily diet of those who call this Island home. Now, as an adult living and raising my children here, I’ve come to appreciate how vast these local ingredients are. When you add locally sourced grains, citrus, wines, wild game, and seafood to the list, you’ll get an idea of how impressive our food options are on Van­couver Island.

I invite you to join us for a ride as we meander along the Old Island Highway, rest quietly through the storms in Port Renfrew and Tofino, and get lost on the back roads of Sooke, Metchosin, and the Cowichan and Comox Valleys. This Island is vast in flavours, rich in ingredients and culinary innovation—and it’s all right here, just waiting for you to enjoy. —DLA

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field

Easy Artisan Seedy Soda Bread

Red Fife Wheat

Overnight Island Oats

Blueberry Lemon Thyme Breakfast Waffles

Red Fife Honey Scones

Roasted Radishes

Quick Summer Farm Pickles

Butter-Roasted Delicata

Roasted Garlic and Honeyed Chèvre Dip

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese Platter

Garden Herb Green Goddess Dressing

Summer Bounty Veggie Platter

Radish and Sprout Salad

Island Greens Salad

Butternut Squash, Kale, and Cranberry Salad

Deep-Fried Zucchini Blossoms

Rainbow Chard and Roasted Yam Grain Bowl

Sweet Corn and Bacon Chowder

Red Fife Flatbread Three Ways

Roasted Sour Cherry Galette

Hazelnut Caramel Coffee Cake Swirls

Shortbread Sandwiches

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Pie

Rhubarb Skillet Cake

Denman Island Chocolate, Beetroot, and Walnut Cake

Empress Lavender Gin Fizz

Spiced Apple Hot Toddy

field

What comes out of a Canadian field? When you give some thought to it, the variety, volume, and complexity of Canada’s cultivated crops are vast in every respect. Beyond our prairies filled with wheat, oats, barley, soybeans, corn, and many other familiar cash crops, there are many lesser-known crops—such as lentils, chickpeas, sesame, mustard—exported across the globe to feed our hungry world, and they are converted into different products and sent back home.

Dijon mustard, which I have long used daily, is a perfect example. I had always assumed it was French, but its origin is Canadian: Our mustard seed travels from Canada to France and is transformed and sent back to us in this most delicious format.

When thinking about cultivated crops here on Vancouver Island, I must admit that at one time my mind mostly wandered to vegetable gardens and small hobby farms that bring food to market—and that’s about it. I figured that because our land is rocky, and topsoil is basically nonexistent, it would be logical to assume that even though our weather is warm and wet, not much can grow. But the more Danielle and I learned, the more we realized our assumptions were wrong. While it’s true that our landscape isn’t ideal for large, efficient, cultivated crops when compared to the Fraser Valley, or the Okanagan, or the wide-open prairie farmlands, it’s also true that the crops that grow here on the Island are varied and astonishing.

Ancient grain wheat may be the most well-known. Our Red Fife wheat is wholesome and rich, and it makes delicious breads and pastries. It’s unadulterated, or crossed, or changed in any way from its original state as wheat. Many artisan bakeries on the Island have their own grain mills and small silos outside, so they can process the grain all on their own. Often the baker is the only one to touch the grain after it leaves the field; the flour is milled on-site and is usually used the day it’s milled. This approach allows bakers versatility for when they mill the flour for rich, deep, nutty breads in contrast to more finely milled flour for pastries, croissants, and cakes. This versatility in the process means there is little to no food waste, making the milling process sustainable, and supporting our farmers and local businesses, allowing islanders to enjoy their local crop in its purest form.

Beyond wheat, oats are grown in the central Island, between Port Alberni and Qualicum; here you will also find crops of barley, kamut, spelt, rye, lentils, flax, and more.

Because of our warm, temperate climate, olives grow on the south slopes of the Cowichan Valley. The only olive-oil-producing grove is on Salt Spring Island, the largest of the Gulf Islands surrounding Vancouver Island. In Sidney, a small town just outside Victoria, a farmer cultivates lemons, limes, oranges, kumquats, and other citrus that most would never expect to find in Canada.

Kiwis grow naturally on vines. Green figs and fragrant lavender are cultivated everywhere from backyards to the fields of the Saanich Peninsula. A wide variety of leafy greens bursts forth at almost any time of year, except August when it’s scorching hot and dry. Fresh herbs are often used as ground cover under trees in cherry, apple, and pear orchards. The soil, rich with nutrients from the bedrock, moss, falling leaves, pine needles, and other plants create this beautiful ecosystem where almost everything grows and our fields overflow. The innovation, creativity, and purpose with which the farmers and producers on Vancouver Island work never fails to astonish me when I attend farmers markets and seek out all that this Island produces.

Each recipe in this chapter features an ingredient from a Vancouver Island field, whether it’s sprouts, leafy greens or rainbow chard, a platter of roasted radishes, hazelnuts in coffee cake swirls, or lavender in sandwich cookies. It's surprising how many different flavours an island field can produce! —EL

Picture of a little white flower.Picture of a farmer walking through a tall field of wheat.Picture of the side of a green house with a sign that says 'steeped in nature'.Picture of a small watermelon growing in a field.Picture of someone on a ladder reaching into a tree in an orchard.Picture of a few orange flowers on a table.Picture of a bunch of tomato varieties in a bowl.Picture of a woman hlding a basket of apples.Picture of a pumpkin growing in a field.Picture of a man holding up a bowl of walnuts.Someone walking through a sun-dappled orchard.Picture of vegetables on the ground in a field.

Easy Artisan Seedy Soda Bread

Makes one 9-inch round loaf

4 cups Red Fife flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp fine sea salt

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup pumpkin seeds

¼ cup hemp or flax seeds

2 ¼ cups buttermilk

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We are lucky enough to have Red Fife wheat, a complex, protein-rich, ancient heritage grain, grown right here in Metchosin. I always have Red Fife flour on hand, knowing it fills my baking with extra goodness—not to mention its super-tasty, dense, nutty flavour. If you can’t get Red Fife, any good whole wheat flour will do for this loaf. —DLA

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Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the seeds and stir to distribute them evenly. Pour in the buttermilk and stir to combine. If necessary, add a drop or two more buttermilk until the mixture just comes together to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface, knead it gently for about 1 minute, and then form it into a ball about 6 inches in diameter. Dust generously with flour and, using a sharp knife, score a cross into the top, cutting about ½ inch down into the loaf. Place the bread on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 65–75 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and place the loaf on a cooling rack to keep the crust nice and crispy.

Picture of a man holding up a huge loaf of dark bread.

Red Fife Wheat

Red Fife is Canada’s oldest variety of wheat, and in the 1860s it was the most popular variety of wheat grown in the country, well-known for being an excellent bread wheat. It is the genetic grandparent to most of the wheat grown in Canada today. Over time, however, new varieties of wheat were introduced, and they became favoured for their resistance to pests or fungus. Red Fife