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Sunday, January 15, 2012

FOOD BOOK OF THE MONTH -- Flavours of Prince Edward Island

FLAVOURS OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND; a culinary journey (Whitecap,
2010, 260 pages, ISBN 978-1-77050-009-9, $39.95 CAD soft covers) is by
the culinary team of Jeff McCourt, Allan Williams, and Austin Clement,
all chefs associated with either the Culinary Institute of Canada or
the PEI Association of Chefs and Cooks (or even both). It is a tribute
to the food of PEI, and won the major Gold award at the Cuisine Canada
Culinary Book Awards 2011 in the English Canadian Culinary Culture
category. Recipes come from all over the island, and photography is by
James Ingram. Chapters are arranged by ingredient. Clement, for
example, takes on clams, beef, pork, potatoes and cheese, while the
others handle mussels, oysters, lobsters, tuna, apples, blueberries,
cranberries, and mushrooms. There is even a chapter on wine and
spirits; Rossignol Winery is well-known for its fruit wines. Each
chapter tells you what and when to buy or how to forage. You can
recreate a typical PEI meal at home. The book is oversized, which makes
it terrific for leading and spaces. The large fonts are easy on the
eyes, and the paperback make it easy for a table layout. Usually,
though, with a posh "coffee table" type book like this, I make
photocopies of the recipes I'd be trying out. Preparations have their
ingredients listed in both metric and avoirdupois measurements, but
there is no table of metric equivalents.
Audience and level of use: armchair travelers, PEI Canadian cuisine
lovers.
Some interesting or unusual recipes/facts: haddock seafood chowder;
grilled halibut with summer salsa; ham rapure; herb and potato-crusted
oysters; hearty braised pork; maple and cider-glazed braised pork
belly.
The downside to this book: it is such a lovely book, I wish it could
have been done up as a hard case-bound book. 
The upside to this book:
Quality/Price Rating: 90.
 
Dean Tudor, Ryerson University Journalism Professor Emeritus
Treasurer, Wine Writers' Circle of Canada
Look it up and you'll remember it; screw it up and you'll never forget it.
Creator of Canada's award-winning wine satire site at http://fauxvoixvincuisine.blogspot.com

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