Taste Local! Taste Fresh!

There are a million reasons to head to Victoria Park in Kitchener next Sunday afternoon for the fifth annual Taste Local! Taste Fresh! event, and though I’d had every intention of getting tickets eventually, a recent conversation with Anna Contini, who helps organize the outdoor local food smorgasbord, served as all the incentive I needed in order to stop procrastinating.

Perhaps it was the mention of braised short ribs with honeycrisp tartare and shitake mushroom salt. Maybe it was the thought of spit roasted lamb or the mouth-watering curiousity that came with the mention of basil and beet biscotti. All and more, no doubt, as each of those items and plenty of others are on the menu for the event, which pairs area chefs with local farmers in an effort to showcase and celebrate the best of what grows in Waterloo region.

Taste Local! Taste Fresh! is organized by Foodlink, a regional non-profit organization whose mandate is to link farmers, chefs, food processors and consumers with the hope of creating a more localized and sustainable food system. For its first three years, Taste Local was held at The Waterlot in New Hamburg; last year the venue changed to Victoria Park when the City of Kitchener came on as the event’s main sponsor. But, as Foodlink’s Contini points out, it’s also a more accessible – not to mention picturesque – venue.

There are nineteen chef/farmer pairings in all and, for the price of admission ($55 per ticket), hungry guests are given a passport and invited to hit every booth to sample the tasty wares – all to the sounds of live music (and, fingers crossed, under sunny skies).

“They’re like a team,” Contini says of the farmer/chef partners. “They serve the food together and the idea is for people to talk to the farmer about how the food is produced or grown or to the chef about how they’ve prepared it.”

Jennifer Pfenning of Pfenning’s Organic Farm near Baden, says she loves participating in the event simply because it gives her a sense of community involvement.

“Our product is well represented in the community but we don’t actually get a lot of face time with the consumer,” she says. “It’s a great time for me personally to stand there and talk to the people who eat our food.”

Pfenning is paired with chef Darryl Haus of New Hamburg’s Peel Street Bistro. Pfenning’s will provide carrots in a variety of shades from white to yellow to purple and Haus will be making three dishes, including a very intriguing sounding sorbet.

Gusto Catering Company is paired with Elmira’s Floralane Produce, who will provide chef Doug Westover with fresh tomatoes. Gusto’s executive director Dominic Ellis said they were linked with beef and emu farmers in years past and are excited about the prospect of a new partnership.

“We haven’t worked with Floralane before so we’re quite excited about it,” Ellis said. “We’d like to start using some of their product. It’s really important to us to support local farmers. The food just tastes better.”

Ultimately, Jennifer Pfenning says, the Taste Local! Taste Fresh! event serves as an excellent and all-important way of helping people contemplate what’s on their plate.

“I don’t think there can ever be enough work done to connect people to their food,” she says. “I view myself as very lucky to be on a farm and, with all of the food we eat, I know the people that grow it…Most people don’t have that opportunity. This gives people a chance to say, ‘Yeah, I met the people that grew that.’ ”

Tickets for Taste Local! Taste Fresh!, which runs from 2 to 5 p.m., are available online at foodlink.ca (where you’ll also see a full list of participating farms and chefs) or by calling the Foodlink office at 513-8998. You can also pick them up at a variety of restaurant around town, among them Charbries, The Walper Terrace Hotel, Hannah’s Bella Bistro and Golden Hearth Bakery.
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