Edible Vancouver Island July/August 2024

"We have a diverse food culture from coast to coast to coast.” –Paul Stewart

"...as Canadians, we’re pretty humble, but it's a good day to be proud of our food." –Paul Stewart Photos clockwise from top right: The late Anita Stewart celebrating Food Day Canada Cookbooks highlighting Canadian cooking Paul Stewart, Food Day Canada's chair Gathering for Food Day Canada festivities All photos courtesy of Food Day Canada

After their mother’s passing, Stewart and his brothers began strategizing ways to continue her legacy and target pressing issues like food insecurity and food waste. They decided to help ensure that it wasn’t only people who could afford to shop at farmers’ markets or eat in fine-dining restaurants who could enjoy Canada’s bounty. In addition to his role chairing the Food Day Canada board, Paul is head chef of the Victoria Cool Aid Society, which prepares, delivers and serves meals to Victoria’s most vulnerable populations. He’d like to see organizations like Food Day Canada take a leading role in promoting programs that will aid the food insecure, whether to provide education in raising or preparing food or to reclaim unsold food products. “Food in Canada needs to go to hungry Canadians,” he says. “And as Canadians, we need to be looking at where our food is from and how to have access to food 365 days a year. It’s not just one day. It’s every day is Food Day, Canada.” Carolyn B. Heller writes about food, travel and all sorts of offbeat adventures from her travels to more than 50 countries on all seven continents.

day to be proud of our food," Stewart says. If you can’t make it to a Food Day Canada event, he suggests participating in other ways–like having a barbecue or dining at your favourite restaurant. Connection and community through food Growing up in Ontario, Stewart says that his mother would take him and his brothers to local farms so they could learn where their food came from. When she was working on a cookbook, “she’d give us 25 cents to do her mise en place and measure all her ingredients, because we had to test every recipe.” Food was what connected the family and their community, he says, whether around the table, in the backyard or around the barbecue. “Mom was really good at making sure there was always a place at the table. We were a second home for a lot of the neighbourhood kids.” He recalls how his mother would feed anyone who turned up with one-pot dishes, big salads and loaves of bread–fresh homemade dishes that weren’t necessarily common in their own homes.

Food Day Canada, Heritage Acres, Saanich, Aug 3rd. FoodDayCanada.ca

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