FEAST (Appetite by Random House, 2017, 296 pages, ISBN 978-0-14-752971-8, $35 CAD hardbound) is by Lindsay Anderson and Dana VanVeller who decided in the summer of 2013 to take a road trip across Canada to experience and write up Canada's food culture. They also turned it into an award-winning blog. And now they have turned it into a book, after 37,000 kilometres through five months, one car, eight ferries, two flights and a 48-hour train ride – all complete through every province and territory. They've got 100 recipes plus stories and eight log rollers (one without ID – somebody named Peter Mansbridge). Over 80 contributors (farmers, chefs, indigenous elders, nanas) shared their regional dishes. It's as diverse as is Canada, or course, and one book to celebrate the 150. (Also: don't forget the stories – they are everywhere in this handsome book). The arrangement is by course: brekkies, apps, veggie mains, meat mains, seafood mains, sides/salads, desserts, and drinks. Contributors are named and an ID given at the back. Preparations have their ingredients listed in both metric and avoirdupois measurements, but there is no table of equivalents. Enough here for two meals a week for the rest of the year.
Audience and level of use: Canadian cooks celebrating Canada and 150 years.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: eggs galiano; curried shrimp; sour cherry and ricotta perogies; spicy haddock and snow crab cakes; giant lobster roll; East coast seafood chowder; venison loin; cauliflower steaks with roasted bone marrow butter.
The downside to this book: in line with the new form of computerized guest lists, all contributors are ranked by their first name and not their last name. Pfui.
The upside to this book: a celebration of the great 150.
Quality/Price Rating: 90.
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