P i s t a c h i o

“I wanted witnesses. I wanted to mark the moment so that we would remember it.” — Jeff Crump

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The book had modest beginnings. “We had in mind a little spiral-bound book,” says Jeff Crump, Executive Chef of Ancaster Old Mill. He wanted to document how his kitchen and a local farm had found an exciting way to work closely together. Then Random House got interested, then a New York agent, then Earth to Table: A restaurant and farm relationship began entertaining inquires about Chinese publishing rights.

“A lot of farmers are gun-shy about working with chefs,” says Crump. “Chefs are picky, and kitchens aren’t naturally geared toward buying from small farms.” But Crump found his match in Chris Krucker of nearby ManoRun Organic Farm.

“Chris got it,” says Crump. For a while, farm hands and kitchen crew were swapping shifts to walk in counterparts’ shoes. Crump was shocked at how difficult it is to pick spinach and beans, and he doesn’t mind admitting that he doesn’t have the back to work bent over all day. He wonders if Caesar salad was invented because romaine is so easy to pick.

The shift-swap made a particularly strong impression on Pastry Chef Bettina Schormann.

When Crump first took over the inn’s kitchens, Shormann was feeling disillusioned and had begun thinking about getting out of the business. But Crump’s ideas about working with the farm cast a new light on her work. She started going to the farm on her day off and then decided to deepen her involvement.

Schormann and Crump learned from food expert Anita Stewart that Red Fife wheat — the mother of all Canadian wheats and the reason why Canada became famous internationally for her wheat – was nearly extinct. It wasn’t being grown anywhere, except by one man in western Canada, as a hobby. When industrial agriculture took over wheat production, sturdier and higher-yielding strains went into production, and Red Fife was all but forgotten.

“Bettina wanted to grow it, harvest it, mill it and make bread with it for the inn,” explains Crump, which is how Schormann became the book’s co-author. Her work with the grain, from seed to sustenance,  became the book’s story line, the thread that travels through the book. Schormann makes the inn’s bread daily.

When the first harvest of Schormann’s wheat came back from the mill as a large sack of flour, Crump gathered the inn’s staff and said, “ ‘This is really something,’ or something along those lines,” laughs Crump. “I wanted witnesses. I wanted to mark the moment so that we would remember it.”

Published by Savour Ontario Dining, Spring 2009