On the importance of highlighting the country’s gastronomic writing

Every October, for 25 years now, many Canadian chefs and writers have gathered for the Saveurs du Canada awards ceremony. This gala aims to highlight the best recipe books and culinary stories in the country.

This year, some 44 books were in the running to win gold and silver awards in five categories, in both English and French.

Chef Devan Rajkumar was the master of ceremonies for the awards ceremony. He himself published his very first book entitled Mad Love : Big Flavors Made to Share, from South Asia to the West Indies a little earlier this year. According to him, the impact of Flavors of Canada is very important.

In Canada, there is nothing else. We don’t have the price James Beard. We only have Flavors of Canada, and it’s completely Canadian.

An important recognition

Fred Campbell and Jean-Philippe Leclerc won the Gold award in the Culinary Storytelling category for Hooké : adventures and wild cuisine. For them, receiving an award for a work that presents both a tale of hunting and gathering travel across Canada and recipes serves to highlight that we work hardselon Fred Campbell.

It’s not very lucrative to write books, unfortunately. This is the fun to have recognition […] and to see that there are people who consider our work thinks the author.

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For Hubert Cormier, winner of the Silver prize in the Cookbooks, single subject category, for Completely bananas, Going to the Queen City to attend the event is important, because it allows you to see the breadth of Canadian offerings in terms of culinary literature.

The one who has already hosted the Saveurs awards ceremony in the past thinks that the awards create opportunities for networking. This will pique the curiosity of certain English-speaking publishers and we can actually take steps to sell rights for a translation he thinks.

Give pride of place to recipe books

The Canadian industry needs consumers to support their own rather than buying books by Martha Stewart or someone else south of the border. We have equally important talents here in our countrysays Karen Baxter, executive director of the Flavors of Canada awards.

The latter took advantage of the ceremony to announce that her organization plans to set up a bilingual gourmet book festival. The Flavors of Canada Awards will also join forces with the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 to contribute to a traveling exhibition on food in 2025 where recipes will take pride of place.

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This project corresponds to the thoughts of Edmonton home economist and author Barbara Barnes, inducted into the Saveurs Hall of Fame.

Whether old or new, these cookbooks were written by Canadians, for Canadians, and they include all the communities in which people live in this country.

She recalls that these works sometimes highlight waves of immigration and life in smaller communities, far from big cities like Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

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It is important to document the history of cuisine in the regions of each province and territory of this countryshe says.