Food stories A PRAIRIE HARVEST (appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail) By Cinda Chavich There's always a special poignancy to harvest gatherings on the prairies. Prairie people are quiet and pragmatic about getting through another season on the farm. Like generations before them have learned, the world is a fragile place and success today may be gone tomorrow, swept aside like a dusty Saskatchewan storm. The people who gathered recently in Calgary around tables groaning with the fruits, meats and vegetables of their hard labours, know about that fragility first hand. They are renegades in the agricultural world - passionate food producers who put things like organic farming methods, environmental stewardship and flavour first in their attempt to eke out a living on land that explorer John Palliser once dismissed as uninhabitable . It can be a hard row to hoe. But, as the Harvest Dinner celebration at Calgary's regionally-inspired River Cafe proved, the benefits of eating locally are palpable. There's a stark simplicity about the prairies, and harvest feast is a reflection of place. There are no oceans teeming with salmon nearby or orchards heavy with fall fruits. Here in Alberta, regional cuisine is necessarily rustic, rooted in the traditions of First Nation people and the early British and European immigrants who struggled to produce enough food on these flat, endless drylands to sustain them through the isolation of many months of winter. NOTE: clicking here should take you to the full story on the Food page with a Back to Food story list at the top the the bottom. There are slides of two of the recipes which should go with the recipe on the recipe page and maybe with the initial story saskatoon pie and corn cakes with trout - or you could illustrate with slide of waving fall wheat from the cover) Then, there was beef and bison, wild berries like saskatoons, storable root crops and grains. Rhubarb and alpine strawberries went into preserves, hardy apples and winter squash were stored in the root cellars, alongside sandy bins of carrots and beets. Sometimes, wild game was once almost the only thing people had to eat. It was, and still is, a meat and potatoes society. With harvest upon us, it's clear that today's upscale Alberta cuisine is very similar. It relies on fresh, local ingredients from creative farmers who are looking for ways to escape the big beef and barley commodity style of farming, and diversify with the kind of hand-made and organically-produced foods that might well have emerged from the farm pantries of the past. top of page Prairie harvest dinners here have always focussed on roasted fowl, freshly-dug root vegetables, and colorful fall pumpkins and squash. But now the simple, old-fashioned flavours of the farm are enjoying anew cachet for a generation of creative young cooks. Caroline Ramsay is one such chef. Working with local growers Tony and Penny Marshall, she learned first hand what it means to grow and harvest a crop of Alberta vegetables. 'It's good for us to see the challenges of growing this food - it's very humbling,' says Ramsay who worked alongside the Marshalls all summer, planting, weeding, watering and finally reaping a harvest of unique and flavorful organic vegetables for the River Cafe menu. Like many of her generation, Ramsay has no experience with farming. In her business, food from anywhere on the planet is only a phone call to a wholesaler away. But as a chef, she is lured by the flavour of fresh produce that comes directly from the land to the kitchen. "The garden really contributed to the restaurants in terms of ingredients," she says. "We managed to supply the restaurant with vegetables for the whole month of August, and that's including 40 pounds of beets a week which is amazing." Like every fine harvest celebration, the River Cafe fall supper was served family style, plates of wild dandelion greens and multi-coloured heirloom tomatoes passed from one hand to the next. There were big platters of natural beef meat loaf with wild boar bacon, roasts of beef and bison sauced in saskatoon berry jus and spiced rhubarb puree, and whole roasted organic chickens topped with traditional sweet and sour cranberries. While diners passed plates, the chefs and waiters circulated - hovering like grandmothers eager to dish out more of their prairie harvest specialties. There was a medley of designer carrots roasted in local honey, some perfectly round and orange, others long and yellow, or bright burgundy, but all with that just-picked earthy flavour of garden produce. Spherical lemon cucumbers were lightly pickled, reminiscent of the first fall dills out of the jar, and sweet cylinder beets arrived sliced in thick purple coins and sprinkled with salty goat cheese from Alberta's own Natricia Dairy. top of page The regional ingredients for this fall fare are coming from a generation of farmers and ranchers who believe in producing food in a manner that will help preserve both the land and the local farm economy. On the A7 Ranch near Nanton, John Cross farms the land where his grandfather A.E. Cross, an early and prominent Alberta cattle baron, once lived. But today Cross beef is produced organically, grazed exclusively on wild pasture and with low-stress handling, all factors that put it in a category beyond basic beef in both pedigree and price. Alexandra Luppold grows her organic garden specifically for chefs like these – her array of distinctive baby salad greens so superior to the ubiquitous California mixes and her crop of Alberta artichokes now turning up in farm markets and on top local menus. At Highwood Crossing Farm, Tony Marshall creates Alberta's answer to extra virgin olive oil - deep amber cold-pressed canola and flax oils, a nutty and distinctive dip for heavy, chewy breads baked with his own organic grains. Others are providing wild flavours of chanterelle and morel mushrooms foraged in the Rockies, birch syrup tapped from local trees, wild sage gathered in the foothills and indigenous game like prairie bison. These are the kinds of foods you can find at the River Cafe every day, but this is not the only establishment devoted to showcasing Alberta's bounty. Alberta cuisine continues to hold cachet in top hotels, mountain resorts and creative restaurants across the province. It's always a struggle for food producers who have stepped out of the mainstream box to offer artisan products, whether it's handmade cheese and sausage, organic beef or rare varieties of tomatoes, potatoes and garden beets. But as the growing season draws again to an end, they can sit back, celebrate and give thanks that they will be around to see another summer. This harvest is a special one. A prairie drought began a season that ended in an uncertainty of a wider kind. There was talk around the table of what to feed pastured chickens where the pasture is dry and brown, and stories of ranchers who had to sell their calves in June with another year of drought looming. But the big bowls and platters of wholesome prairie food are proof of a resiliency that's always ready to call upon when spring comes again here on the Alberta high plains - the place they call next year country. (click here for recipes) top of page