Christian Pritchard is a resourceful man and the closer to home those resources are the better. A chef, a musician, an entertainer, a broadcaster, an educator, consultant and advocate Pritchard is seen regularly as a guest chef on TV and he has curated culinary tours of Ireland, Italy and the Yukon in Canada. All the while he seeks what is close at hand to make what is needed at the time. What is close to hand is also close to his heart. He lives in Brooklyn, Ont., close to what many say is the finest farmland in the country and he uses as much local, in-season ingredients in his work as possible. Pritchard is also a strong believer in 'terroir', the idea that soil adds its own special flavouring to what is grown in it. Its an old idea but it is being slowly adopted in this rather young Northern country he says.
“The great thing about Canada is the soil is so diverse. There is 'terroir' everywhere we go. We are a northern country and we never look at a northern country as being a good thing in food but it is, its a great thing. Things like root vegetables which are the salt of the earth, its very important. Ontario has deep rooted growth in that environment. I also do work in the Yukon. You never think of the Yukon as being a great place for food but it is. There’s history there, the First Nations, so it goes way way back,” he says.
Way back into the back country but also a lot closer to home. Even as farmland is being buried under urban sprawl across the Greater Toronto Area there is the possibility that culinary entrepreneurs will reclaim portions for their own tables through their own gardens, or by way of community gardens and partnerships with farmers. People moving onto land bring with them their own culinary traditions and their multicultural cuisine heritage married with 'terroir' can give rise to a unique Canadian food identity.
“For us in Ontario the soil is only one aspect of how great it is,” says Pritchard. “Its the people that have settled the land, the Irish, the Ukrainians, the English, everybody and they have sculpted their own history in our earth. It seems anyone comes to Canada, my own family included, we get on this whole ‘be polite thing’ and we don’t stand up for what we have. Its also got to do with being a new country. We are always trying to find out what is a Canadian dish or who are we. I have given up on worrying about that. In Ontario, in southern Ontario we are everybody. So its kind of exciting. Its OK to be a baby in this. Being a baby you grow. The country is only 148 years old but its a lot older with First Nations and you can get into what going on there too. Its exciting and we don’t recognize that. But when we do we are going to go places.”
Pritchard is going places to source ever more new ingredients for his dishes. The self-described culinary adventurist has another tour of the Yukon going July 29 to Aug. 2, 2015. He won’t be panning for gold but he will be digging the dirt for a more sustainable resource, its 'terroir'.