Local Only!

Today I took my first step in a series of many small steps to fully convert our restaurant into one that uses foods that are locally supplied by artisanal food producers. Today I met with a very nice and knowledgeable man named Angelo Bean. He is a native from Napoli, Italy and his passion for good food is inspiring and infectious. He is the creator of the Ontalia philosphy which is "Italian roots in local soil to create a union between Ontario and Italy". I love it.

In his own words,
"This is the philosophy behind the recipes and events I create, which blend the traditional authentic Italian image with local traditionally-raised Ontario agricultural products. Throughout my life I have always sought to create pure and original regional Italian cooking using many ingredients imported seasonally from Italy. However, the true local artisanal products are rarely exported. Also, the long distance that these products travel is not environmentally sustainable, and compromises freshness.
As a member of the Slow Food Convivia here in Toronto, I came to fully understand the organization’s motto "Good, Clean and Fair": buy foods produced locally in a sustainable way, and pay a fair price to the growers."

That motto is very important to me because I do not believe in buying anything at the lowest price possible. If you pay full pop for a good quality product, that act in itself motivates the producer to want to build an even better product or at least provide a healthy supply of their product. But if you over bargain and under pay for a good quality product, then the producer questions the reasoning behind offering the product at all or worse they start to cut corners. An overblown example of this is the Big Mac. There was a time, actually back in 1948, (http://stuffucanuse.com/Macdonald%20recipies.htm), before food industrialization, when it was actually a good quality, local product. But in the efforts of trying to keep the product inexpensive they have turned around and made it cheap. Cheap in cost and in quality. Too bad for everybody, because if you actually make your own Big Mac using top quality ingredients the burger will cost just a little more than what you pay for a Big Mac at McDonalds, but the flavour of the fresh made one will blow the pre-made one away.

Anyway, I'll be trying the sausage samples that Angelo gave me with my parents and maybe a few house clients just to decide on which one we will put on our Fall menu. Here are descriptions of the sausages we will be trying.
Salsiccia Ubriaca (Italian for "Drunken Sausage")
1- the Baco Noir Sausage is Berkshire pork meat drunken with Baco Noir wine to repesent the 'terroir' of the Niagara wine region.
2- the Reisling sausage is drunken with Ontario Henry of Pelham Reisling
3- the Multipucciano is drunken with Multipucciano D' Abruzzo

Angelo confesses to using wines that are in the $50 range and his favourite is the Reisling. I can't wait to try them. I'll post my notes and any new recipes soon. Until then I suggest visiting Angelo at angelobean.com
Ciao!