High Plains: The Joy of Alberta Cuisine

Patricia A. Myers is a historian at the Historic Sites and Archives
Service, Alberta Community Development, and the author of Sky Riders: An
Illustrated History of Aviation in Alberta, 1906–1945.

Cinda Chavich has been writing about food for many years. High Plains
emerged from her passion for regional cuisine, a style of cooking she
defines as being connected to the land. Food going directly from field
to table, she argues, is superior to food that has traveled halfway
around the world. By visiting local growers, producers, and purveyors,
Chavich discovered a world of top-quality foodstuffs that she showcases
in a collection of yummy recipes, set off by Mike Sturk’s photography.


Chavich takes you on a journey from organic chicken producers,
wild-game producers, and cheese makers to berry and vegetable patches.
She profiles some intriguing products, such as cold-pressed canola oil,
mustard, and heirloom tomatoes, and uses these products in recipes
ranging from the exotic (e.g., Heirloom Tomato Salad with Sheep Feta
Fritters) to the everyday (e.g., Creamed Rutabagas). I made the Red
Lentil Hummus as well as Beef and Big Rock, a stew that features a
bottle of Big Rock Traditional Ale brewed in Calgary. Both were
delicious. Western touches are apparent in such recipe names as Cowboy
Calzones, a dish made with chicken and black beans, and Spotted Dog, a
rice pudding with raisins.

I do have a few quibbles. It sometimes seems as if the topic is just
too big for the chosen format. Various kinds of sidebars, from cooking
tips to how to home-smoke fish, are used to try to shoehorn all kinds of
information into the book; this makes for a very distracting design and
some questionable decisions about what needed to be included. Do we
really need another lesson on making stock, for example, or a recipe for
Classic Chicken Stew? A map would have been helpful for those wanting to
visit some of the places mentioned in the list of producers and vendors.


Still, this is a nice book, one that will open many eyes to the range
and quality of Alberta products.