Speaking in Cod Tongues / Lenore Newman

4 out of 5 stars 

Speaking in Cod Tongues explores the centers of Canadian cuisine, from ocean to prairie, and from the height of urban dining to picnics in the wilderness. From bakeapples to fiddleheads, from maple syrup to k'aaw, Speaking in Cod Tongues celebrates a young and vibrant cuisine.

When I was a child, I had a pen-pal in Korea. He asked me what should have been an easy question: what is the national dish of Canada? My mother and I talked it over, but really couldn’t come to any conclusion--Canada is so regionalized that you really can’t use any one recipe to represent all of us.

What we do have (to some extent) are Canadian ingredients: maple syrup, wild berries of several types, maybe salmon. We claim two sweet desserts: the butter tart and Nanaimo bars. We have some of our very own junk food: Cheezies, Smarties, ketchup chips, among others.

This author points out that Canadian cuisine features many wild foods: berries, fiddleheads, mushrooms, wild rice, bison, fish, dulse. My maternal grandmother came from New Brunswick, and through her I was introduced to fiddleheads (young, curled fern shoots) and dulse (dried seaweed). I can’t say that I enjoy either of those foods. Through my paternal grandmother, I was introduced to Danish delicacies--I especially remember the heavy, dark rye bread that she produced in her kitchen. 

Growing up on a farm, I remember the seasonality of our food, back in the day. I’m still a scrounger for the first rhubarb of the season and I was thrilled when my sister gave me some fresh spinach and a head of lettuce out of her garden on the weekend. Vegetables were limited by the end of winter and we were always excited for the new garden produce. It turns out that Canadian cuisine was local and seasonal before that was cool. We have made Farmers Markets a very popular item throughout the country. 

Another popular Canadian pastime is taking the food outdoors. Summer is short and we believe in going on picnics, hosting outdoor barbeques, and eating in the backyard or the camp-site as often as possible. I live in Calgary, the epicentre of pancake breakfasts. People set up the outdoor pancake griddle for virtually any occasion.

I had never realized before that J.L. Kraft was from Ontario, but left to the United States to “perfect” his cheese-preserving technology. And Canadians have certainly embrace what we call Kraft Dinner or KD. You know that neon orange cheese and macaroni? “Canadians buy 1.7 million of the 7 million boxes sold globally each week” according to Wikipedia. Not sure we should be proud of that….

The other national obsession seems to be the Tim Horton’s chain, where Canadians gather to swill coffee, and eat doughnuts and Timbits (supposedly the doughnut holes, but actually made with a completely different dough formulation). The double-double is a Canadian thing (a coffee with two creams and two sugars). While we can’t claim to have invented the doughnut, we have certainly embraced it.

The cooking of our immigrants has also become a permanent part of the Canadian scene. See Ann Hui’s book Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants for the saga of the Chinese cafe and restaurant in Canada. The talent of the Chinese immigrants was to take fresh local ingredients and use their own cooking techniques to create food for their communities. Speaking as a Calgarian, I love our local “Chinese” dish, ginger beef. Other regions have their own beloved creations.

I have to also say that I was delighted to find reference in this book to my favourite history professor at University of Calgary, Henry Klassen. Dr. Klassen was a methodical lecturer and a meticulous researcher. I loved the courses that I took from him and he was always ready with a smile when I met him on campus, even many years later. I was saddened when I learned of his death in 2005. This reference to his work means that he lives on and for that I am glad. 

All in all, I could have used this book back when I had that Korean pen-pal, but I am glad to have read it now.

The Good Gut / Justin & Erica Sonnenburg

3.5 stars out of 5

Finally, a book about the gut microbiome that actually offers constructive advice! This is what I’ve been searching for, even if I am a bit disappointed with the authors’ recommendations.

First off, there are things that affect your microbiome that you cannot change—if you were born by C-section or weren’t breastfed, there’s nothing that you can about it. Neither can you change the amount of antibiotics that you took as a child.

There are three things that you can do from this moment on, however. First, don’t rush off to your doctor and demand antibiotics for every little thing. Every time you take them, there is nuclear winter for the good microbes in your gut, leaving space for pathogens to muscle in and make you sick. There are times that you will need antibiotics—save your exposures for those time. (Having recently struggled with a nasty skin infection, cellulitis, which made me very feverish and scared, I am very thankful for antibiotics).

The second thing is that we have developed the idea that ultra-clean is ultra-good. Not necessarily so, say the authors. Accept a bit of dirt back into your life. Dig in the garden, get a bit of dirt under your fingernails, pet your dog or cat, don’t stress too much about washing. Of course, clean up to make yourself comfortable and always wash your hands after toilet visits, but your kitchen does not have to have the same level of clean as an operating room. You can benefit by challenging your immune system via the gut and maybe acquire some useful microfauna in the process.

Thirdly, we are starving our good gut microbes. They need the fibre from foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains. Lots of it. Also keep in mind that our microbiome is a pharmaceutical factory, producing molecules that can affect our lives in unexpected ways. Too much meat favours microbes that produce a cancer causing substance. Finally the whole “eat less meat” message makes more sense to me, although it makes it no easier to follow. Moving away from simple carbohydrates can also be challenging, especially because we enjoy them so much, but they feed the wrong bacteria.

I find this kind of book very inspirational. It’s difficult to change life-long bad habits, but I’m always re-inspired after reading about current research and its ramifications. So I made a happy trip to the farmers’ market last night to buy cherries, raspberries and carrots and I plan to feed the beneficial bacteria as well as I can.

The Great Starvation Experiment / Todd Tucker

4 out of 5 stars

Near the end of World War II, thirty-six conscientious objectors volunteered to be systematically starved for renowned scientist Ancel Keys’s study at the University of Minnesota in the basement of Memorial Stadium. Aimed to benefit relief efforts in war-ravaged Europe and Asia, the study sought the best way to rehabilitate starving citizens. Tucker captures a lost moment in American history—a time when stanch idealism and a deep willingness to sacrifice trumped even basic human needs.

This was a fascinating read in that can’t-look-away-from-the-car-accident kind of way.  If you’ve read any books about dieting, you’ve probably heard about this study.  Indeed, if you’ve ever been on a restrictive, low-calorie diet, you know how your world begins to revolve around food and you have a hard time giving a damn about anything else.  Now I know exactly how normal this is!

It was an especially interesting book when read shortly after <i>Night</i> by Elie Wiesel and <i>Man’s Search for Meaning</i> by Viktor Frankl.  Both men describe the centrality of food in their lives during their incarceration in the prison camps.  They talk about not having the energy or the brain power to spare to help others, even family members.

Ancel Keys’ experiment would certainly never be green-lighted today.  Despite the fact that his subjects were volunteers (conscientious objectors who chose the experiment rather than military service) and they knew the experience would be difficult, they had no idea how grueling it would be.  It didn’t take long for their sex drives to disappear (Frankl mentions this in the concentration camps, that it actually kept the experience from being worse because no prisoners had the drive to victimize anyone sexually).  Some of the Keys’ guinea pigs (as they were known) continued to go to classes and listen to lectures, but it rapidly became too hard to pay attention.  Keys advised guest lecturers to mention food, which would rivet the men’s attention, at least momentarily.  Meals became the focus of their days and they would become angry & abusive if service was the slightest bit late or if the food was not piping hot (they also felt cold all the time, as their bodies tried to save energy).  A group of men who started out happy, healthy, and social became touchy, angry, and prone to sudden outbursts.  They performed strange rituals with their food—sometimes stirring it all together into a pile for instance.

The supposed object of the experiment was to find the best way to get people back to normal after periods of extreme hunger.  It turns out that the conclusion was to feed them!  The guinea pigs ate at least 5000 calories per day when they were permitted to eat freely again and one man distinguished himself by eating over 11,000 calories in one day!  No supplements made any meaningful difference—just food.  That’s the saddest part really, that these men suffered through the experiment and so little was actually learned as a result.

100 Million Years of Food / Stephen Le

4 out of 5 stars

There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-grains are a disaster; eat everything in moderation; eat only certain foods--and on and on. In One Hundred Million Years of Food biological anthropologist Stephen Le explains how cuisines of different cultures are a result of centuries of evolution, finely tuned to our biology and surroundings. Today many cultures have strayed from their ancestral diets, relying instead on mass-produced food often made with chemicals that may be contributing to a rise in so-called "Western diseases," such as cancer, heart disease, and obesity.

Travelling around the world to places as far-flung as Vietnam, Kenya, India, and the US, Stephen Le introduces us to people who are growing, cooking, and eating food using both traditional and modern methods, striving for a sustainable, healthy diet. In clear, compelling arguments based on scientific research, Le contends that our ancestral diets provide the best first line of defense in protecting our health and providing a balanced diet. Fast-food diets, as well as strict regimens like paleo or vegan, in effect highjack our biology and ignore the complex nature of our bodies. In One Hundred Million Years of Food Le takes us on a guided tour of evolution, demonstrating how our diets are the result of millions of years of history, and how we can return to a sustainable, healthier way of eating.


This author tackles a variety of interesting topics, each one feeling like it could be the basis for its own book.  He plunges right in, pointing out that many primates are insectivorous and that many traditional cuisines include insects on the menu.  Fortunately or unfortunately (whichever way you choose to look at it), most of us have lost our taste for the chitinous creatures and our prejudices have rubbed off on those who earlier in history did enjoy this high protein foodstuff.  (Just for the record, I will NOT be joining this movement!)

Wherever you look nowadays, there is someone who is willing to tell you what you should be eating and why.  Should we give up meat?  If so, should we eat dairy products or should we go vegan?  Should we be eating fish?  How about agricultural staples like wheat or legumes?  You can find opinions on all of these questions, just hunt around on the internet for a little while.

As Stephen Le points out, some of these issues are going to boil down to sustainability issues.  We are rapidly depleting the ocean’s fish and clearing the oxygen-generating forests to create grazing land for cattle, which are quite inefficient at converting vegetation into flesh.

What I really liked was his sensible suggestion that we quit looking at food in terms of specific nutrients and instead consider it in whole cuisines.  So a person should consider their genetic heritage and try eating more foods consistent with what their own specific ancestors ate.  As a descendant of Danish immigrants, I am probably fine eating dairy products (while many Asian and Native Canadians lack the digestive enzymes to deal effectively with lactose).  I should also consider including more fish in my meal planning (pickled herring, anyone?) to mimic the ancestral condition.  However, I am a devoted maker of curries and stir fries, not very Scandinavian!

Lots to think about, but nothing startling.  Yes, we should exercise more (going walking this evening), eat more like our ancestors (without worrying about going all Paleo), worry less about vitamin pills (as my doctor says, they just produce expensive urine), and eat real food (shades of Michael Pollen).

A nice summary for those who aren’t sure about all the food wars raging in cyberspace.

The Dorito Effect / Mark Schatzker

4 out of 5 stars

In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation's number one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs or any other specific nutrient. Instead, we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor - the tastes we crave - and the underlying nutrition.

Since the late 1940s, we have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow. Those perfectly round, red tomatoes that grace our supermarket aisles today are mostly water, and the big breasted chickens on our dinner plates grow three times faster than they used to, leaving them dry and tasteless. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, allowing us to produce in the lab the very flavors that are being lost on the farm. Thanks to this largely invisible epidemic, seemingly healthy food is becoming more like junk food: highly craveable but nutritionally empty. We have unknowingly interfered with an ancient chemical language - flavor - that evolved to guide our nutrition, not destroy it.

With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We've been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended.

The author provides a three point summary of his book close to the end:

Humans are flavor seeking animals. The pleasure provided by food, which we experience as flavor, is so powerful that only the most strong-willed among us can resist it.

In nature, there is an intimate connection between flavor and nutrition.

Synthetic flavor technology not only breaks that connection, it also confounds it.

We’ve been so busy trying to squeeze more food out of fewer resources, that we lost sight of the fact that food should be flavourful and nutritious—think of tomatoes, carrots, and chicken purchased in the grocery store. All of them are pretty tasteless. The vegetables are woody and unpleasant. The chicken requires brining, marinating or saucing in order to render it edible.

A hundred years ago, a typical tomato plant was twelve feet tall and carried four or five ripe tomatoes at any one time, with a few green babies still weeks away….A tomato plant now tops out at six feet and carries as many as ten ripe tomatoes at once. That’s too many….It doesn’t have enough leaves to power all that fruit, so it undergoes the plant equivalent of a brown-out. Like a frantic parent, the plant fills its fruit with the only thing it can: water. And the tomatoes taste like what they’re filled with.

Animals and people eat what they need because it tastes good. Experiments done with sheep and goats reveal that plants taste better to the animals when they need the specific nutrients that the plants provide. I remember our farm days, when the first garden lettuce was a matter of celebration, inducting us into a summer of fresh produce after a winter of more limited menu.

Now, we have a whole industry that has learned to mimic the flavours of nutritious food. When we eat it, our systems are fooled into thinking that we are getting nutrition when all we are getting is calories. Since we need the vitamins and minerals, our bodies drive us to eat more of the same food in search of those necessities. (Have you ever found yourself obsessively eating cookies or Doritos or some other processed food, seemingly unable to stop? This is what’s going on!) We can’t reach satiation, because we haven’t met our requirements for vitamins, minerals and fibre.

The food problem is a flavor problem. For half a century, we’ve been making the stuff people should eat—fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unprocessed meats—incrementally less delicious. Meanwhile, we’ve been making the food people shouldn’t eat—chips, fast food, soft drinks, crackers—taste ever more exciting. The result is exactly what you would expect.

This has been a very motivating read—time to remove even more processed foods from my diet and search for fruits, vegetables, and meats that really taste like they’re supposed to, like those I remember eating while growing up on the farm.

The Tastemakers / David Sax

4 out of 5 stars

Tastemaker, n. Anyone with the power to make you eat quinoa.

Kale. Spicy sriracha sauce. Honeycrisp apples. Cupcakes. These days, it seems we are constantly discovering a new food that will make us healthier, happier, or even somehow cooler. Chia seeds, after a brief life as a novelty houseplant and I Love the ’80s punchline, are suddenly a superfood. Not long ago, that same distinction was held by pomegranate seeds, açai berries, and the fermented drink known as kombucha. So what happened? Did these foods suddenly cease to be healthy a few years ago? And by the way, what exactly is a “superfood” again?

In this eye-opening, witty work of reportage, David Sax uncovers the world of food trends: Where they come from, how they grow, and where they end up. Traveling from the South Carolina rice plot of America’s premier grain guru to Chicago’s gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world of influence, money, and activism that helps decide what goes on your plate. On his journey, he meets entrepreneurs, chefs, and even data analysts who have made food trends a mission and a business. The Tastemakers is full of entertaining stories and surprising truths about what we eat, how we eat it, and why.

I found this an interesting book—in the same ways that Michael Pollan’s food books are endlessly fascinating to me. Sax is also trying to figure out how the world of food works, but he is looking at it from more of the marketing point of view. He still talks to a LOT of influential folks and attends a LOT of events.

Significantly (to me at least), he debunks the whole notion of a “superfood,” a notion which has always bugged me. Who decided that pomegranates are a superfood? Why a pomegranate producer, of course! Sponsor a rather anemic study and then get out there and proselytize, baby! It makes me grumpy despite the fact that I love the fruit and have never been known to turn down a pomegranate martini. Eat your veggies and fruits, people! They all have valuable nutrients and anyone who is trying to tell you that you should skew your consumption towards one plant is trying to make money from you.

On the encouraging side of the equation, it seems to be a very hit-or-miss proposition as to whether a carefully planned campaign will actually achieve full blown trend status. As much as Indian cuisine has been attempting to become trendy for decades now, it keeps misfiring (at least in the US). I found that mystifying, as when I go out with friends we more often than not choose an Indian restaurant and curry is one of my absolute favourite things. Seriously, I have 2 friends who hate it and I have a hard time cooking for them when they come to my house—I use a lot of curry!

Another positive revelation: although the food establishment may try to declare a trend over, the people of the world do not necessarily listen to them! Hence the enduring appeal of cupcakes and bacon! The chapter on Baconomics contains amazing stories of the strength of the love of cured pork bellies.

Basically, food suppliers are attempting to imitate the fashion industry, with “what’s in and what’s out” each year. Perhaps this works in the world of clothing, but consumers feel very strongly about the food that they take into their bodies and they are not going to stop loving cupcakes just because a few food bloggers are tired of them!

Just for the record: I love bacon and pomegranates, I tolerate quinoa, and I absolutely loathe kale (and can hardly wait until it’s in the “what’s out” category). I am agnostic on the matter of cupcakes.