The Rural Voice, 1994-12, Page 23Patrons take delight in
seeing a local farmer pull up
with fresh produce
The names on the menu sound a
long way from the plain "meat and
potatoes" products a farmer sends out
of his fields and barn: "Roast breast
of chicken in ginger, olive and
Cilantro sauce with shiitake
mushrooms and cous-
cous"; "Smoked pork chop
stuffed with apple currant
relish and served with a
sweet potato puree in a
smokey bacon jus".
But it's the work of a
chef like Rob Evans to turn
those everyday items into a
meal for which people are
willing to pay more than
everyday prices.
Evans is the chef at the
Benmiller Inn, the restored
woollen mill beside Sharps
Creek where it joins the
Maitland River. When the
Inn opened 20 years ago it
brought a new standard of
dining to Huron County, the first
upscale dining room in the area.
People used to stopping in at a local
main street restaurant for fish and
chips or a hot beef sandwich were
aghast at the prices. Rural people
used to heaping plates were also
aghast at the small portions.
Today the Inn is an accepted part
of the social scene and other
restaurants have moved into the same
category as people became more
willing to pay extra for the kind of
extra taste and attention a chef like
Evans can bring.
One thing that has been a tradition
through the years, says Kathy Nichol,
current inn -keeper, is the use of
locally produced food on the menu.
That tradition, she says, is stronger
now than ever., Evans provides a list
of more than a dozen local suppliers
of everything from eggs to trout,
rabbits and breads. Some provide
year round items for the menu like
beef and pork; some, specialty items
like "The Elderberry Lady" and the
"Fiddlehead Lady".
Nichol, sitting in the glassed -in
dining area overlooking the patio and
gardens brightened by the late fall
sun, says the Inn is very proud of the
fact that it is located in the midst of
one of the most productive
agricultural areas in Canada. The Inn
knows that food picked locally will
be the freshest it can buy, providing
the best basis for a quality meal.
Local food is also an attraction for
guests who come to the Inn for a
taste of life different from their hectic
city pace. Guests are delighted to
"see John Smith wheeling in with his
Bob and Bev Budd, so that it could
get fresh, organic vegetables. The
Budds come around with a list of
possible crops before planting time in
the spring and ask what will be of
interest .
That kind of consultation is
important for those wanting to
produce for the Inn. Evans welcomes
the opportunity to chat with potential
suppliers about what they can
provide.0
Spreading the
word about local
freshness
Inn -keeper Kathy Nichol and Chef Rob Evans at The Benmiller
Inn: menus are designed around local products.
pick-up"to deliver fresh food to the
kitchen.
The amount of local food on the
menu varies according to the
time of year, says Evans. In the
summer 70-80 per cent of the product
may come from farms in the area. In
winter, when things like fresh
vegetables can't be grown locally,
that will drop to 30-40 per cent. "We
use more meats in winter. In the
summer we can get more variety."
Evans changes the Inn's menu
four times a year to feature the foods
of the season. For fall, for instance,
root vegetables will find more
prominence. He shapes the menus to
what is available locally rather than
setting a menu, then trying to find the
products. In the fall rabbit and
venison, thins that would have
appeared on a traditional menu from
times past when people hunted more,
take a prominent place.
The Inn has advertised to find new
suppliers at various times. Over the
years a solid list of suppliers has
been built up little by little. "Many
have been in business since before I
was born," says the youthful Evans.
The Inn even bought shares in the
Huron Community Gardens, run by
Bryan Steele and Eleanor
Kane are spreading the word
about using local food in the
menus of fine dining
establishments. Not only do
they use a Targe amount of
Perth County produced food
on the menu of their
restaurant, The Old Prune in
Stratford, but they encourage
dozens of young chefs to
include fresh local products through
The Stratford Chefs School where
Kane is director and Steele an
instructor.
About 65 first and second year
students a year go through the Chef
School. Part of their training involves
a panel discussion with farmers and
growers in which they talk with
students and each other about the
challenge of growing specialty
products, marketing them and how
they can meet with chefs and find out
what the chefs want. Among the
growers is David Cohlmeyer of
Cookstown Greens who pioneered
growing specialty vegetables for
restaurants. A former chef himself at
a Toronto restaurant, Cohlmeyer was
dissatisfied with the quality and
freshness of the vegetables he could
get so decided there was a niche to be
filled and started his own market
garden operation.
Cohlmeyer still talks to the
students but at both The Old
Prune and the Chefs School
much of the vegetables now come
from local producers like Antony
John of Sebringville, who began
growing fresh flowers for restaurants
and now has expanded to grow small
DECEMBER 1994 19