Maritime cooking starts with great local produce--lobster, scallops, oysters, blueberries, apples, cranberries, maple syrup, and more. There are treasured traditional dishes--hodge podge, baked beans, gingerbread, blueberry grunt--as well as the simple but delicious lobster boil. Leading chefs like Craig Flinn of Halifax's Chives restaurant, Michael Howell of The Tempest in Wolfville, and many others have come up with wonderful new ways of cooking with fresh, local ingredients. Best Recipes of the Maritime Provinces brings the traditional and the contemporary together in one great collection.
During her many years as Canadian Living magazine's food editor, Elizabeth Baird was a great fan of Maritime cooking. She has visited every corner of the region to research and write about great local producers and cooks and their recipes. To prepare this collection, she started with well over 1,000 recipes published in cookbooks over the past three decades. From those, she has selected 400+ recipes by over fifty of the region's leading chefs, including Elaine Elliot and Virginia Lee, whose bestselling Maritime Flavours has sold more than 30,000 copies. Also included are tasty recipes from healthy eating champions Maureen Tilley and Sandra Nowlan.
This is the book that every Maritime cook will want--and that visitors will take home so they can explore the region's rich culinary traditions.
"Many of the 400 recipes Baird chose for the book are a blend of old and new. Readers will find Rappie Pies, an Acadian dish derived from the French word for "grate," referring to the method of grating potatoes for the top layer of the pie. This simple peasant fare can be made with nearly any meat, shellfish and, in the old days, sea birds. Yet she also chose more contemporary favourites such as smoothies and cream cheese crab cakes."
- Judy Creighton The Canadian Press
Featured as a "Book of Interest" in The Seniors' Advocate
- Seniors Advocate
"Including Best Recipes of the Maritime Provinces as part of your cookbook collection is akin to inviting celebrated chefs like Craig Flinn and Michael Howell into your kitchen."
- Atlantic Books Today
"...readers can enjoy a selection of dishes from many Maritime cookbooks, all compiled into one convenient digest...It serves as both a window into the minds of today's chefs and a walk down memory lane."
- Alain Bosse Saltscapes Magazine
"What do you get when you take more than 30 cookbooks containing over 1,000 favourite Maritime recipes and stack them on the dining room table at Elizabeth Bairds house? Eventually, they get simmered down into one scrumptious collection called Best Recipes of the Maritime Provinces"
- Nadine Fownes The Chronicle-Herald
ELIZABETH BAIRD began her career as a champion of Canadian cuisine with her 1975 book Classic Canadian Cooking. For many years she was the food editor of Canadian Living magazine, and she has written and edited many bestselling cookbooks. She was appointed to the Order of Canada "for her contributions to the promotion of Canada's diverse food heritage."