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Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food
Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food brings to the table some of Canada’s best contemporary writers, celebrating all that is unique about Vancouver’s literary and culinary scene. Punctuated by beautiful local food photographs, interviews with and recipes from some of our top local chefs, each of these short pieces will shock, comfort, praise, entice, or invite reconciliation, all while illuminating our living history through the lens of food. Sustenance is also a community response to the needs of new arrivals or low-income families in our city. The contributors have donated their honoraria to the BC Farmers Market Nutrition Coupon Program. A portion of sales from every book will go towards providing a refugee or low-income family with fresh, locally grown produce, and at the same time will support B.C. farmers, fishers, and gardeners.
Award-winning chefs, poets, and writers in Sustenance include:
Frank Pabst (Chef, Blue Water Café), Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Mark Winston, Susan Musgrave, Lorna Crozier, Thomas Haas (artisan chocolatier), Meeru Dhalwalla (Chef, Vij’s and Rangoli), Ayelet Tsabari, Joan Kane, Thomas Larson, John Pass, Sarah Leavitt, Amber Dawn, Daphne Marlatt, Carleigh Baker, Russell Thornton, Evelyn Lau, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Brian Brett, Jen Currin and many, many more.
Award-winning chefs, poets, and writers in Sustenance include:
Frank Pabst (Chef, Blue Water Café), Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Mark Winston, Susan Musgrave, Lorna Crozier, Thomas Haas (artisan chocolatier), Meeru Dhalwalla (Chef, Vij’s and Rangoli), Ayelet Tsabari, Joan Kane, Thomas Larson, John Pass, Sarah Leavitt, Amber Dawn, Daphne Marlatt, Carleigh Baker, Russell Thornton, Evelyn Lau, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Brian Brett, Jen Currin and many, many more.
256 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2017
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 5, 2018
A version of this review first appeared in the Spring issue of BC Bookworld and appears here with permission kindly granted.
Let me begin by putting on my bookseller’s hat and asking the key question: who will reach for this book?
Gardeners who sigh happily over the new batch of seed catalogues arriving in late January, cooks who read cookbooks like other people immerse themselves in books of short stories, amateur and professional chefs, readers and writers of compressed, powerful poetry and prose, those who appreciate photography and will discover Derek Fu’s gorgeous work…and that’s just for starters.
There are 151 tidbits to savour from writers who live in Vancouver, where Poet Laureate Rachel Rose envisioned this highly collaborative book, and from elsewhere around the world. There are contributions from nationally renowned poets like Lorna Crozier, John Pass, Susan Musgrave and Fred Wah, nearly-anonymous librarians who write like angels, celebrated chefs like Karen Barnaby, Meeru Dhalwala, Vikram Vij and Frank Pabst, thoughtful children and wise elders, some speaking Arabic and Cree. There are farmers, beekeepers, fishers and backyard gardeners, First Nations, Metis, refugees and members of their welcome committees.
As Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver from 2014-2017, Rachel Rose wanted a community project which offered another world view than the muttering and braying about walls to keep out the Other, meaning Muslims, Mexicans, and desperate refugees the world over. Rose had already spent years volunteering with Burmese families in Surrey, shopping for food, shampooing hair, attending graduations, weddings and funerals. Her genuine Canadian hospitality imbues this book project too because the money raised by sales, as well as every single writer’s honorarium, is donated to the BC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Coupon Program so that low-income families will have access to fresh, locally-grown food.
So as well as bringing so many wonderful writers together at the ‘table’ of Sustenance, the book itself is a gift that keeps on giving, the Poet Laureate’s inspired “love letter to the city.”
The selected writings, as you’d expect from an editor and writer of her stature with award-winning work published internationally and an abiding focus on human rights, is unfailingly eloquent. This is not a book written by or for people scampering off to find the trending mustard de jour. As well as thoughtful, we have hilarious (Jane Silcott’s ‘Cooking Class & Marriage Lessons’ and Karen Barnaby’s ‘Blackberry Fever’), heart-breaking (Sophia Karasouli-Milobar’s ‘Fava Bean Stew’ and Elizabeth Ross’ ‘Milky Way’), sensual (Jeff Steudel’s ‘Recipe’), life-affirming (Brian Brett’s ‘I Want to Serve Food to Strangers’) and carnivorous, although I would also cross-file it under hilarious (kjmunro’s ‘hungry in Tofino’).
The voices are as diverse as the forms— interviews, memoirs, recipes, both literal and figurative, prose and poems of all kinds, some as paeans to moose meat, bees, bread, beer, tomatoes, rice, beloved grandmothers, salmon, maple syrup, elk heart and fresh berries. The writers tackle subjects as difficult as anorexia, obesity, starvation, sugar, animal deaths, and allergies, real and possibly, imposed (see the delightful, plaintive essay, ‘Check the Ingredients!’ by Charles Dickens Grade 6 student, Ayla Maxwell).
What makes this book important and substantial to me begins with the obvious, universal fact: we all must eat to survive. Secondly, food is served on a platter of emotional connections to people, place and experience, the things that really matter to each of us therefore, the writing packs a visceral wallop. To sum up, food, sustenance, is intensely personal as well as political (read Billeh Nickerson’s smart, incisive poem ‘A Baker’s Dozen: 13 Vancouver Food (In)Securities’).
The final words, amid the cornucopia of offerings at this banquet for humanity, goes to ten year old collaborators, Bodhi Cutler and Gus Jackson, who both attend Charles Dickens Elementary School in Vancouver. ‘Every Dish is Unique’ is their short, sweet and perfectly apt essay which sums up Sustenance.
‘Every dish is unique because every Vancouverite makes it a tiny bit different. We all have our styles and our ingredients, our suppliers and our equipment. There are restaurants who will probably make great pasta with the best calamari. Your mom can make a great homemade meal she invented herself. No two meals taste the same because they are like humans, unique and great.’
Let me begin by putting on my bookseller’s hat and asking the key question: who will reach for this book?
Gardeners who sigh happily over the new batch of seed catalogues arriving in late January, cooks who read cookbooks like other people immerse themselves in books of short stories, amateur and professional chefs, readers and writers of compressed, powerful poetry and prose, those who appreciate photography and will discover Derek Fu’s gorgeous work…and that’s just for starters.
There are 151 tidbits to savour from writers who live in Vancouver, where Poet Laureate Rachel Rose envisioned this highly collaborative book, and from elsewhere around the world. There are contributions from nationally renowned poets like Lorna Crozier, John Pass, Susan Musgrave and Fred Wah, nearly-anonymous librarians who write like angels, celebrated chefs like Karen Barnaby, Meeru Dhalwala, Vikram Vij and Frank Pabst, thoughtful children and wise elders, some speaking Arabic and Cree. There are farmers, beekeepers, fishers and backyard gardeners, First Nations, Metis, refugees and members of their welcome committees.
As Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver from 2014-2017, Rachel Rose wanted a community project which offered another world view than the muttering and braying about walls to keep out the Other, meaning Muslims, Mexicans, and desperate refugees the world over. Rose had already spent years volunteering with Burmese families in Surrey, shopping for food, shampooing hair, attending graduations, weddings and funerals. Her genuine Canadian hospitality imbues this book project too because the money raised by sales, as well as every single writer’s honorarium, is donated to the BC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Coupon Program so that low-income families will have access to fresh, locally-grown food.
So as well as bringing so many wonderful writers together at the ‘table’ of Sustenance, the book itself is a gift that keeps on giving, the Poet Laureate’s inspired “love letter to the city.”
The selected writings, as you’d expect from an editor and writer of her stature with award-winning work published internationally and an abiding focus on human rights, is unfailingly eloquent. This is not a book written by or for people scampering off to find the trending mustard de jour. As well as thoughtful, we have hilarious (Jane Silcott’s ‘Cooking Class & Marriage Lessons’ and Karen Barnaby’s ‘Blackberry Fever’), heart-breaking (Sophia Karasouli-Milobar’s ‘Fava Bean Stew’ and Elizabeth Ross’ ‘Milky Way’), sensual (Jeff Steudel’s ‘Recipe’), life-affirming (Brian Brett’s ‘I Want to Serve Food to Strangers’) and carnivorous, although I would also cross-file it under hilarious (kjmunro’s ‘hungry in Tofino’).
The voices are as diverse as the forms— interviews, memoirs, recipes, both literal and figurative, prose and poems of all kinds, some as paeans to moose meat, bees, bread, beer, tomatoes, rice, beloved grandmothers, salmon, maple syrup, elk heart and fresh berries. The writers tackle subjects as difficult as anorexia, obesity, starvation, sugar, animal deaths, and allergies, real and possibly, imposed (see the delightful, plaintive essay, ‘Check the Ingredients!’ by Charles Dickens Grade 6 student, Ayla Maxwell).
What makes this book important and substantial to me begins with the obvious, universal fact: we all must eat to survive. Secondly, food is served on a platter of emotional connections to people, place and experience, the things that really matter to each of us therefore, the writing packs a visceral wallop. To sum up, food, sustenance, is intensely personal as well as political (read Billeh Nickerson’s smart, incisive poem ‘A Baker’s Dozen: 13 Vancouver Food (In)Securities’).
The final words, amid the cornucopia of offerings at this banquet for humanity, goes to ten year old collaborators, Bodhi Cutler and Gus Jackson, who both attend Charles Dickens Elementary School in Vancouver. ‘Every Dish is Unique’ is their short, sweet and perfectly apt essay which sums up Sustenance.
‘Every dish is unique because every Vancouverite makes it a tiny bit different. We all have our styles and our ingredients, our suppliers and our equipment. There are restaurants who will probably make great pasta with the best calamari. Your mom can make a great homemade meal she invented herself. No two meals taste the same because they are like humans, unique and great.’
June 3, 2022
I love this collection. I picked it up on a whim, because I saw a piece on sourdough, by local author, Christina Myers. Food, baking, poetry, prose…what’s not to love—I will return to this collection often.
There are so many beautiful pieces in here. I found the poem I’d enjoyed when Kevin Spenst performed it in my classroom: “Ballad in Crazy Quilts”; I found other works from favourites like Fiona Tinwei Lam, Lorna Crozier, and Karen Barnaby, among others.
The first piece in the book is the poignant “Cooking Lesson:Kebbeh” by Rachel Rose. Here’s an excerpt:
“Today I drove through hard rain to meet you./ I came empty handed , asking for your recipes,/ which Sarah translates, which Lydia writes down. We cannot speak /directly to each other, though the eyes take measure,/ the hands. Let’s avoid the war for a moment, politely, like ladies,/let’s look the other way. Six women in a community / kitchen: every story we tell is a door to another story.
….
When the mixture is ready, add the flour./ Press the meat into the centre, then deep fry in oil./ We used to cook all together. When we made Makoubeh,/ we turned it over with many hands. Now we cook alone./ Yes, now you cook like Canadian women, each in her lonely kitchen./ Yes, like that. We lost everything./ My parents are still there….”
There are so many beautiful pieces in here. I found the poem I’d enjoyed when Kevin Spenst performed it in my classroom: “Ballad in Crazy Quilts”; I found other works from favourites like Fiona Tinwei Lam, Lorna Crozier, and Karen Barnaby, among others.
The first piece in the book is the poignant “Cooking Lesson:Kebbeh” by Rachel Rose. Here’s an excerpt:
“Today I drove through hard rain to meet you./ I came empty handed , asking for your recipes,/ which Sarah translates, which Lydia writes down. We cannot speak /directly to each other, though the eyes take measure,/ the hands. Let’s avoid the war for a moment, politely, like ladies,/let’s look the other way. Six women in a community / kitchen: every story we tell is a door to another story.
….
When the mixture is ready, add the flour./ Press the meat into the centre, then deep fry in oil./ We used to cook all together. When we made Makoubeh,/ we turned it over with many hands. Now we cook alone./ Yes, now you cook like Canadian women, each in her lonely kitchen./ Yes, like that. We lost everything./ My parents are still there….”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews