Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm
Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann
Random House Of Canada
September 2009, 336 pages, $45
I’m a cookbook hussy.
I have hundreds, but only twenty or so make my regular rotation. So, it was no surprise that when I attempted to buy Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, I came home with the newly published Earth To Table, instead. What I didn’t expect was how often I would peruse its glossy pages during the weeks following my purchase.
I’ve always believed the mark of a good cookbook is how banged up and stained the pages become, and if I judged Earth to Table by this metric after my week of testing it, you’d assume good food must live here. Coincidentally, it does. Penned by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann of The Ancaster Old Mill, this seasonal tome is jam-packed with lusciously tempting photos and recipes highlighting the best that each quarter of the year has to offer. Divided by the four seasons, plus an additional section for basics, it’s peppered with chef profiles, lists of items harvested in Ontario for each time frame, how to's and spotlights on ingredients, alongside exquisitely written instructions. I selectively tested recipes from each season; staying true to the ethos of the book by choosing only those whose ingredients could be found in my CSA farmshare.
Day one brought a loaf of wheatberry beer bread (fall), whose nutty texture and abundance of rye flour was reminiscent of malty pumpernickel. The wheatberries added a noticeable crunch, but soaking them longer than the recommended 20 minutes would probably improve the texture (and protect one’s teeth).
Day two’s choice was inspired by page four of the introduction, in which Crump describes the first time he sampled raw corn on the cob. I had just-picked minimal spray corn at home and rampant curiosity, so I followed suit and bit in. That mouthful of fresh, crunchy raw yellow corn evolved into a dinner of Crump’s corn soup (summer), a literal expression of sunshine in a bowl. While it simmered, all I could smell was chicken stock, but the first spoonful belied the strength of the delicate corn kernels. Rhubarb compote (spring) provided a sweet-tart foil for a dessert of homemade vanilla whisky ice cream I had in the freezer, and allowed me to use up an unlikely fall harvest of the pinky-green stalks. Incidentally, it made a fantastic topping for the milk and honey bread (spring), too!
Day three saw piri piri sauce (summer) combined with grilled chicken, while potatoes from the farmer’s market became a warm salad with green beans and shallots (summer). At the 11th hour, I realized I didn’t have the requisite lemon juice for the salad, and subbed in the most lemony vinegar available (Labrador tea) with wholly pleasing results. And while the piri piri sauce might not be entirely authentic, it was a complexly flavoured marinade that unexpectedly turned out to be entertaining, too (make sure to blot excess marinade before you grill on a BBQ, lest you singe off your eyebrows).
On the last day of testing, we feasted on braised pork belly (winter), fluffy sweet potato gnocchi (fall), and spongy sticky toffee pudding (winter). A comforting autumn meal that was proof enough that eating seasonally need not be austere or boring. The slow cooked belly was decadently unctuous, prepared in a dead simple set-it-and-forget-it kind of way. And even though I’ve made gnocchi many times over the years, mine weren’t nearly as beautiful as the ones in the book, but they were a well balanced blend of sweet and savoury toothsome bites. And though I’m not a fan of sticky toffee pudding in general, this one was better than most I’ve tried, almost convincing me to give them another chance in the future.
After a week of constantly referring to Earth To Table, I did find a few bugaboos. There are a fair number of recipes within recipes, enough of a pet peeve of mine that I chose other dishes to test, though some may enjoy the implied serve-with suggestions. I’m also a fairly accomplished baker, but I found that both loaves I sampled (while delicious) were extremely dense. The milk and honey loaf was so heavy that I worried it wouldn’t bake into anything more than a bread-shaped doorstop. Luckily, it became a compact but faintly sweet loaf with a taste akin to brioche. The only other hiccup was the gnocchi; I normally rice baked potatoes, but since the recipe hadn’t specified, I didn’t. The result was a batter flecked with small chunks of potato that I painstakingly picked out and discarded. Overall, the instructions are comprehensive, but a few areas could use further clarification.
Earth To Table encapsulates the pure pleasure behind cooking with harvest cycles in mind. The premise is local, but at the execution is cosmopolitan and global, providing enough variety that even the pickiest eater should find a meal or two that satisfies within. Whether you’re a locavore, locawhore or somewhere in between, chefs Crump and Schormann have got you amply covered. Plus, aside from being a stellar cookbook, it also proves to be a compelling read; one that I had a hard time putting down.
As for me, the book charmed me so much that a modified (gluten-free) version of its mile high pumpkin pie will be gracing my own Thanksgiving harvest table this year. It’s also advanced from a slot on the reference-only shelf to a spot with the others regularly scheduled for usage. So, if I haven’t done so already, I urge you to go out and support these two local, Ontarian authors; you (and your stomach) certainly won’t regret it!
Buy "Earth to Table" at Amazon.ca
Porsha Perreault is a freelance writer, voracious eater, amateur charcutier, and chocolate enthusiast living in Little Italy. She can often be found sourcing the newest developments in heirloom and heritage fruits and veg and other local delicacies at farmer's markets around Toronto or blogging about her obsession with food at Foodie and the Everyman.
