The 3rd Annual Northern Food night held at Edmonton Slow Food members Steve Cooper and Twyla Campbell’s house was a night full of tasty surprises. Northern Food Night (NFN) started in 2006 when Steve Cooper, who travels to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories on a regular basis, brought home a frozen hind end of a caribou. Twyla’s response was “Now what are we going to do with that?” In an effort to educate people about food products that come from Canada’s northern regions, Northern Food Night was born.

One of the surprises (and a great conversation piece) was the tray of Penguin Meatballs created by budding chef, Erin Campbell. With no Edmonton Oilers to cheer for this year in the playoffs, Erin, an outspoken Pittsburgh Penguins fan, grabbed the opportunity to say “Go Pens Go!” by creating this intriguing dish using ground caribou—because everyone knows that penguins (the animals) do not make their home in Canada’s Arctic. The original recipe (which calls for ground beef as the main ingredient) and contributed by Sidney Crosby’s mom, was taken from the Pittsburgh Penguins Family Cookbook, Goal Scorers & Gourmets.

The versatility of northern products was further shown in the making of other dishes such as grilled Korean style caribou chops, cedar-planked Arctic Char, musk ox chili, decadent yet delicate Northern Pike caviar on buckwheat blinis, melt-in-your mouth musk ox carpaccio, Thai mango & Davis Strait shrimp salad, and smoked Arctic Char rolls with a lemon and fennel cream cheese filling.

Slow Food Edmonton is fortunate to have some talented food industry people in its convivium. Hosts Steve Cooper, lover of fine foods and cooking enthusiast, and Twyla Campbell, freelance writer and food editor of Lifestyle Alberta magazine, prepared several of the dishes and received help from other Slow Food members as well. Lovoni Walker of Fabulous Food Creations Inc. prepared musk ox chops and Arctic char tartlets and supplied everyone in attendance with her beautiful cookbook, Simple Fresh Delicious. Chad Moss, master roaster at Edmonton’s Transcend Coffee, took on the task of preparing 10 pounds of walleye loins and served them atop Spanish style potatoes with a spicy aioli. City Palate Editor, Mary Bailey roasted a red wine marinated musk ox sirloin tip roast, and Carla Alexander of Soul Soup brewed up a wickedly delicious pot of spicy shrimp bisque. Gail Hall of Seasoned Solutions brought her famous chewy biscotti style Cantuccini to go with heavenly coffee made with fresh roasted beans supplied by Poul Mark of Transcend Coffee, and Dave Gardner of the Yukon Brewing Company was on hand to educate and satiate the crowd with the brewery’s internationally acclaimed beer. Canadian wines were also served to pair with the richly flavoured dishes: a robust 2005 Merlot from Sumac Ridge’s Black Sage Vineyard, Mount Boucherie’s 2006 Pinot Gris, and Quails’ Gate 2005 Old Vine Foch. Henry of Pelham’s 2006 Late Harvest Vidal and a Maple syrup/Canadian whisky liqueur called Sortilège (from Quebec) were paired with berry sorbet and Saskatoon crème brûlée created by Tara Zieminek. Oh, Canada! …you have some beautiful products!

An added bonus of the event is to make people aware of other Canadian foods that are available—not necessarily from the north—but found by members while traveling across the country or through connections in the local food industry. This year, Cyrus Shaoul introduced the attendees to Alpaca meat obtained from a local rancher. The meat was absolutely divine and very similar to beef in taste but without high saturated fat content found in many cuts of beef. More information on alpaca availability will be posted on the website in the near future. For now, anyone wishing to purchase musk ox, caribou, Arctic Char and other fine meats, can find them at Buffalo Valley Variety Meats in Edmonton.

Suppliers of products for NFN 2008:
1. Buffalo Valley Variety Meats (www.buffalovalley.ca), Edmonton suppliers of caribou, musk ox, and char
2. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation (www.freshwaterfish.com) - Walleye loins and Northern Pike caviar.
3. Transcend Coffee (www.transcendcoffee.com) – fresh roasted coffee
4. Kivalliq Foods (www.ndcorp.nu.ca/ndc/subs_meatandfish/kivalliq) – caribou
5. Iqaluit Enterprises (contact Jim Currie PH: 867-979-4458) – cold smoked char & shrimp
6. Kitikmeot Foods (www.nunavutmuskox.ca) – musk ox, jerky, whole char
7. Yukon Brewing Company (www.yukonbeer.com) - beer
8. Liquor Ex – #132-2833 Broadmoor Blvd., Sherwood Park, Phone: 417-0333 - wine
9. Laws Fine Foods (www.backeddys.com) – Back Eddy Spice

Photos by Michele King of Michele King Photography, Edmonton.