S.Pellegrino's Young Chef Competition - Apply Now!

Image courtesy of Rick Owens.

For young chefs, coaching and mentorship with a seasoned professional can be a career-altering experience. This is one of the core values of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Competition.

Now entering it’s third year, Canadian chefs 30 years and under can apply to take part in this internationally renowned competition, designed to scout and develop the best young chefs in the world. Contestants of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Competition have the opportunity to gain valuable coaching from the industry’s best while networking and gaining national and international visibility.

Chefs de cuisine, chefs de partie, sous chefs and commis with at least one year’s work experience can submit their signature dish to Sanpellegrino.com.

Signature dishes will be evaluated by five criteria, known globally as the Golden Rules: Ingredients, Skills, Genius, Beauty and Message.

The competition is open for entries until April 30, 2017.  

Image courtesy of San Pellegrino

Last year, Chef Normand Laprise acted as “Mentor Chef” to Canadian winner and Calgary native Chef Sean MacDonald (Executive Chef, Hexagon Restaurant ). Together, they worked to perfect MacDonald’s signature dish - Duck and Carrot - in preparation for the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Competition’s “Grand Finale,” held in Milan, Italy. MacDonald represented Canada against 20 young chef hopefuls from around the world, also gaining exposure and feedback from a judging panel comprised of Gaggan Anand, Elena Arzak, Wylie Dufresne, David Higgs and Roberta Sudbrack, also known as the “Seven Sages.” Chef Normand was also a juror, along with respected Canadian chefs Connie DeSousa and Rob Gentile, at the Canadian semi-finals, held at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) last year. He is looking forward to returning to the AGO on May 29th to talk about the importance of mentorship at this year’s Terroir Symposium.

Image courtesy of San Pellegrino

Ontario's Newest Winery Is Located Just North of Toronto.

Hockley Valley has been renowned for being one of the best culinary and relaxing vacation getaways here in Ontario. With a focus on local and exceptional hospitality, the team behind Hockley Valley envisioned adding a vineyard and winery to their already stunning property. After years of planning, the dream of opening a winery in Ontario came to fruition.

Adamo Estate Winery, named after the founding Adamo family, is one of the newest wineries in Ontario. Set on the sprawling estate less than an hour north of Toronto, this new winery is a must visit. With a winery café, a beautiful wine tasting bar and tours, Adamo Estate Winery is the perfect getaway from the busy city.

With a wide range of wines from crisp rosé wines to dry Rieslings, buttery Chardonnay, as well as Pinot Noir, Gamay and Cabernet, Adamo Estate Winery producers a full range of VQA wines sourced from their own vineyard and Niagara. Turning heads and winning awards, we knew we had to sat down with Shauna White, the current winemaker at Adamo Estate Winery to learn more about one of Ontario’s newest wineries.

Terroir Team: What makes the terroir of Hockley Valley different than other cool-climate wine varieties?
 
Adamo Winery: Our vineyard location and climactic influences is really what makes us different. As part of The Hockley Valley area we are also located on the Niagara Escarpment, which influences our soil composition and limestone content.  Our daily weather patterns are different from Niagara and Prince Edward County due to our distance from Lake Ontario and its moderating effects.  Winters here are colder, nights here can be cooler, last spring frost is often later, first fall frost is often earlier, our number of degree days is less and the wind here seems to always be blowing through our vineyard.  The above mentioned influences are shown in the structure and profile of our Estate Wines.  For example our Estate Chardonnay was harvested at very similar sugar levels and phenolic ripeness to a Niagara Bench grown Chardonnay, (also the same clone) but the acidity, pH, texture and flavours are very different which makes for a fun and exciting horizontal wine tasting.

What makes for a great vintage?  
Balance.  A well balanced vine, with balanced weather of rain, sun and heat, produce premium quality grapes, which in turn will have balanced sugar and acid for making a balanced wine of premium quality.  This is true for both red and white grapes, especially when the weather allows you to choose the optimal harvest date when the flavours in the grapes are mature and at their peak expression of their terroir.

Beyond southern Ontario, what is your favourite wine-growing region in the world?
This is a very tough question because it depends on the grape variety.  I have favourite places in the world for each and every grape and style of wine.  There are so many regions that specialize in a particular grape and wine style, I could choose one for every day in the month!  However, when I am looking for a go to wine that I enjoy for any occasion I look to Burgundy, France.

What is the most challenging part of owning and operating a winery?
Mother Nature.  She can throw you curve balls at the best and worst of times. You must be flexible and diligent because planning specific vineyard management practices for specific days is not always possible due to weather. The timing of vineyard practices can be critical though and that means that you work at night or all weekend to get everything accomplished at the proper growth stage, to ensure a healthy and happy vine.

You're having your favourite dinner and pairing it with your favourite glass of wine. What are you eating, and what wine have you poured?
Lots of Oysters and Chablis.

If you could serve your wine to any Canadian icon, past or present, who would it be and why?
John Candy because I think he would like our wines and be a very fun person to spend some time with.

What are you most looking forward to at this year's symposium?
Just being a part of this fantastic event because the energy at the Terroir Symposium is always captivating and exciting. Being with, and speaking with, so many innovative and down to earth people is motivating, encouraging and fun!

Terroir At The Table

Ten years ago, thanks to the imaginations and efforts of a small group of colleagues and friends, who sought to create a unique opportunity for people from all corners of the hospitality industry to come together, share ideas, and inspire one another, Terroir Hospitality Symposium was born. The goal? To provide members of our industry, on a local and international level, with the platform and tools necessary to provoke tangible change, amongst both themselves and the industry, for the better.

The event, like a child, was born a guileless version of its future self, bursting with life and potential. Since its conception, Terroir has grown immensely, while still always maintaining the core objectives from which it was founded: to educate, provide a forum for networking and to foster a stronger sense of community within our industry. This is all thanks to our incredible team of organizers and volunteers who have dedicated themselves, year after year, to turning what began as just a dream into a reality.

Looking back, change is something we’ve observed, not only within Terroir, but also throughout the industry as a whole. Namely, thanks to the explosion of social media, an appreciation and hunger for excellent food has grown exponentially in recent years within our culture. With the rise of the “foodie”, consumers of all ages and types are now ravenous to experience more of what the culinary universe has to offer. We celebrate this fact throughout the hospitality industry with the hope that, through events like Terroir, we can inspire curiosity amongst this growing group of food-lovers to further inform themselves, by questioning all aspects of the industry and understanding their own power as conscious consumers to incite change .

Throughout the years, the inclusion of our Collaborative Dinner has become an integral part of our Terroir program. It has allowed us, year after year, to bring both industry members and consumers together, offering them the chance to collaborate at the most important front: the dinner table. Behind the scenes, collaboration takes place between chefs, producers, winemakers and hosts, chosen each year based on their talent and passion for their craft, no matter the evening’s theme. Through a feast that reflects some of the most poignant trends and innovations of the current food scene, the collaborative dinner is a destination for professionals and amateurs alike to convene over a shared love for food. As guests gather around the table, discovery and inspiration ensues through the means of both palate and conversation.

For this year’s collaborative dinner, Creativity & The Idea of North, Terroir will be partnering with the Art Gallery of Ontario’s FRANK Restaurant, to create an inspirational dining experience, featuring 16 internationally renowned chefs from across Canada and beyond. These culinary masterminds will work collaboratively with sustainable suppliers to prepare a six-course menu, featuring their most creative work, inspired by the Lawren Harris Exhibit – The Idea of North.

Carolyn Phillips, Food Writer, Scholar, Artist

Carolyn Phillips is a food writer, scholar, and artist. She is the author of the fully illustrated All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China (McSweeney’s + Ten Speed Press, August 2016) and The Dim Sum Field Guide: A Taxonomy of Dumplings, Buns, Meats, Sweets, and Other Specialties of the Chinese Teahouse (Ten Speed Press, August 2016). Carolyn’s art has appeared everywhere from museums and galleries, to various magazines and journals, to Nickelodeon’s Supah Ninjas series. She worked for over a decade as a professional Mandarin interpreter in the federal and California state courts, lived in Taiwan for eight years, translated countless books and articles, and married into a Chinese family more than 30 years ago.

You lived in Taiwan for eight years - what inspired this move?                  

I initially went to Taiwan to learn Chinese. Mainland China was still reeling from the last stages of the Cultural Revolution, so I opted for Taiwan, and what an amazing place that turned out to be: beautiful people, delicious food, a tropical paradise.

After two years of living in Taipei as a student, my Chinese had improved to the point where I became the main interpreter at both the National Museum of History and the National Central Library. I would translate books and letters all day and then accompany the director to Taipei’s stellar restaurants whenever he had foreign guests, which was quite often. It was the same thing at the library, so I got to eat out quite a bit. Add to that my brand new Chinese husband, quite a gourmand himself, and good food suddenly became very central to my life.

Taipei had the most amazing spectrum of regional restaurants then. To say that I was in the right time at the right place is the understatement of my life. What had happened was this: In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war to Mao Zedong and the communists, so Chiang decamped to China’s smallest province, the island of Taiwan. Many of these people were quite wealthy, and they had brought their favorite chefs with them, so Taiwan ended up with culinary masters from every part of China.

In the late 1970s Taiwan began producing all the hardware for those early computers, and the economy boomed. Now, when people have money, one of the first things they tend to do is reach out for the finer things in life, and with Chinese folks, that inevitably means eating really well. We already had lots of fine mom n’ pop restaurants throughout the city, but this new influx of money meant that those great chefs finally could open up the food palaces of their dreams.                                                          

What are some of the most fundamental differences between Western and Chinese culinary culture?                             

Great question. One of the biggest distinctions is that here in the West we did not have one single country enveloping all of Europe, and so we ended up with lots of smaller countries that exist to this day, like France, Germany, England, and Greece, all with their very own food cultures, ingredients, and regional cuisines. But China has been around as a country and culture for thousands of years, making it totally unique. It’s a single nation, rather than an assemblage of countries. That is one of the reasons why, when we look at China, we naturally think of the foods there as simply being “Chinese.” And in a way we’re right, because yes, they are from the country called China, but at the same time we’re wrong, because this is not a monolithic cuisine.

The thing is, China was isolated country from the rest of the world by vast oceans, endless deserts, and the highest mountains on the planet. It was cut off from the West for the most part until only around a thousand years ago, when the Silk Roads started acting as cultural highways across the vast landscapes of Central Asia.

I spent about ten years trying to figure out the food puzzle that is China’s cuisines. What I finally concluded was that the country actually has five major culinary regions, and then each of these regions encompasses a total of 35 individual cuisines. What is a culinary region? It’s an area that shares a similar climate and topography, as well as related languages, cultures, ethnicities, and ingredients. What this means in short is that the individual cuisines within that region at times end up looking like kissing cousins.

For example, the Yangtze River environs luxuriate in China’s most temperate climate, with ample rainfall, rich farmlands, vast waterways, and ancient cities, and so the foods of a great metropolis like Shanghai reflect the culinary heritages of its upriver neighbors, like Anhui, with a devotion to fermented sauces, a touch of sugar, and mellow rice wine. Fresh vegetables shine here and are supplemented with ones that have been salted or fermented to give natural flavor boosts to the local dishes. Since the foods of this region share so many common culinary traditions and ingredients, you can easily add a dish from someplace like Zhejiang to a Shanghainese dinner and expect it to effortlessly slip in with the rest of your menu.

But you will have difficulty shoehorning in foods from any of the other parts of China into that Shanghainese meal. The flavor spectrums, ingredients, and aesthetics of the other four regions are just too different. In short, I’ve found that food really is a delectable key to understanding China and its people.

Eating in China is almost always a communal affair; dishes are usually served in the center of the table, with everyone sharing. That is why most Chinese dining tables are round, and why lazy Susans are so popular in restaurants. The only time you don’t is when you are out getting a snack of noodles or something.                              

Dining therefore has some different rules, such as the requirement that you take just a little bit from the serving dishes the first time around and only get to polish off the rest once everyone else is full. The fancier the meal, of course, the more complicated the rules.                                                    

Perhaps, more importantly, chopsticks work perfectly with shared meals. Just think how difficult it would be to eat off of serving dishes if you were armed with nothing more than a knife and fork. Chopsticks, though, allow you to pick up small portions and deposit them on your own plate. They also demand that the food be reduced to smaller sizes, and they’re not going to work well on things like steak and fried chicken!

Another thing is that the Chinese have an extraordinarily ancient food culture. Few places can rival this country for the unbroken line of culinary knowledge that has passed down through the centuries. Food is taken very seriously, so seriously that the therapeutic aspects of almost every ingredient are considered. As we eat, we are filling ourselves with chemicals and nutrition, what we consume has an enormous impact on our bodies.

Food is, simply, medicine. This is especially true in the southeastern coastal region, the areas that include Southern Fujian, Northern Guangdong, and Taiwan. Traditional Chinese herbs like ginseng, red dates, and wolfberries warm the body and raise the metabolism, so people who are ill or pregnant eat these as healthful supplements. The fact that they are so delicious certainly makes the medicine go down quite easily, too.                                           

What traits do they have in common?                           

China is just like everywhere else in that food is considered an ideal reason for family and friends to get together. Parents show their love for their family by cooking favorite dishes and pampering them with special treats. Food is a delight and a reason to party. Holidays are always celebrated with food in China, as in the West, with each festival centered on specific dishes.

My guess is that the first foodies were in China. The classics are riddled with notes on how to dine well. Emperors, artists, and the literati have waxed eloquently on the subject, and even great philosophers like Confucius shared their feelings about food.                                                              

In what ways do Chinese consumers and producers generally respond to environmental factors, such as seasonality and regionality, in agricultural systems?                               

It is only recently that the Chinese have started to regain their age-old regard for the balance and wisdom of Nature.

As I will discuss in my talk at Terroir, seasonality has always played a huge part in traditional Chinese food culture. Much of this was simply due to practicality: refrigeration had not yet been invented, transportation was limited for any but the most wealthy and powerful, and you had to either grow or catch or harvest food as best you could. Sure, you could trade with people from other villages, but you generally had to deal with neighbors who more or less offered the same range of goods as yours. What that means is that in the North around Beijing, bananas were never sold, nor was fresh seafood a possibility in the Central Highlands around Sichuan Province.

Each of the five major culinary regions therefore has a set of ingredients that grows well in that particular place. Just like in the West, people in China have traditionally depended upon the foods that are grown nearby. It’s just that much fresher and better that way. Plus, if you have your own plot of land and some livestock in the back yard, you probably raised dinner yourself. Until modern technology rearranged the culinary seasons for us by allowing refrigerated, frozen, and canned ingredients to bypass the regular rhythm of Nature, the Chinese had always depended upon the best seasonal produce as their main ingredients, which were supplemented by the daily catch of seafood or freshwater fish, foraged plants, and wild game.                                                                                     

What are some of the core ingredients of traditional Chinese cuisine?                           

China is a huge place with an enormous range of climates, ethnic groups, topographies, and so forth, so each area has its own food culture and favorite ingredients. For example, the North is cold, and so wheat is the main starch, while the tropical South loves rice. Lamb and beef are beloved in the desert West, while seafood, freshwater fish, and pork are the mainstays of the temperate East.

But if you look closer, you find even more interesting factors at play. For example, you have the division between the main ethnic group – the Han Chinese – and the minorities, and that is everyone from Mongolians and Manchurians to Tibetans and the Zhuang peoples. Nine out of ten Chinese are Hans. The foods of the Han Chinese – and these are what we usually think of when we imagine “Chinese” food – have deep xianwei flavors, what we in the West now refer to by their Japanese name, umami.

Xianwei refers to the meaty, deep flavors in a dish, and in China this is usually the result of the many dried and fermented ingredients that make their way into almost everything that winds up on a table.                   

When you taste the minority foods of China, you find this characteristic more or less disappears. Just as in pretty much the rest of the world, the dishes of these peoples tend to be seasoned with salt rather than soy sauce, rice wine isn’t used, ingredients are fresh rather than dried, and you don’t see the Han Chinese infatuation with manipulating things with molds and salt and time in order to create deep, dark aromas and complex textures.

What lessons can we learn, and perhaps adopt, from the existing traditions and standards of Chinese culinary culture and cuisine?                       

Probably the most important things that we need to do as Westerners are to learn to value every part of an animal and to explore foods that are outside of our comfort zone. Americans in particular (and I say this with love) are really squeamish about things like guts, blood, faces, tendons, and skin, and so too much of the animal goes to waste or is turned into dog food. Most of the time, whenever I mention my devotion to things like beef hearts or tripe, the reaction is disgust or even disbelief. What a pity.

This waste is criminal, yes, but it also cheats us out of enjoying animals to their fullest. Take tendons, for example. We tend to think of these as inedible, but if you slowly braise them for a couple of hours, they transform into silky strands. Their innate blandness makes them ideal candidates for heavily seasoned sauces, almost like pasta. When you add them to a soup, they make the broth rich and satiny, so there is no need for a thickener. They are cheap, so anyone can buy them. And their collagen strengthens our bodies, so what’s not to love?

We should also look at foods that are not typically part of Western food cultures, like jellyfish. With the warming of our planet’s oceans, they are taking over many ecosystems. We should fight back with our chopsticks. Crunchy and lovely, they only have to be blanched, sliced, and tossed with a piquant sauce and some vegetables or chicken to turn into something extraordinary.

In what ways do you think that Chinese cuisine and culinary culture has changed most since you last lived in Taiwan?                        

The old chefs have died off and the traditional master-apprentice hierarchy has for the most part disappeared, so the ancient ways are being forgotten.                       

When I was there in the 1970s and 1980s, master chefs ran the big restaurants. Since then many of the great places have closed, as they often do when a famous chef is no longer at the helm. Too many Chinese chefs are now looking to the West for inspiration when they have this goldmine of a food culture all around them. Ingredients like fois gras, caviar, and cheese that suggest luxury and wealth are being slipped into China’s fine dining menus nowadays, but I find it silly, as China’s ancestral food is simply so much better. It’s the greatest food secret in the world, period. I’m hoping that this is just a blip in the regular evolution of a food culture and look forward to a culinary renaissance before long.

Another thing that is missing are the street hawkers. We used to have them roaming up and down the alleyways in Taipei, and these men and women were from all over China. They would sell handmade foods that reflected the cuisines of their hometowns, and it was all incredibly good. I’d wake up to their cries for steamed buns and go to sleep listening to the tamale guy announcing his wares. It was magical. But Taipei is a shiny metropolis nowadays, and most of the old hawkers seem to have disappeared.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the insidious inroads American fast food has made in Taiwan and China. Young people now yearn for commercialized pizza, fried chicken, and hamburgers instead of the great street foods of China. I don’t understand the appeal. It’s like choosing a moped over a Ferrari.

In addition to your work as a food writer, you're also a professional artist. In what ways have you been able to combine your passions for food, writing, and art?

These two loves did not begin to dovetail until McSweeney’s accepted my proposal for All Under Heaven: Recipes From The 35 Cuisines of China. This was a dream come true. McSweeney’s is a fiercely independent and creative publishing house that treats its writers and artists with unparalleled respect. To even be considered by them is an honor, so I still can’t believe they said yes.

Also, right at the start, Lucky Peach asked me to create an illustrated guide to Cantonese teahouse treats that later morphed into a book – The Dim Sum Field Guide, which will be published by Ten Speed Press in late August – so I’ve been on cloud nine ever since.                                               

I feel extraordinarily lucky to be doing what I love for a living. Not too many people can say that their dreams have come true.

Vikram Vij, Chef

Vikram Vij is a chef, entrepreneur, author and television personality. He was born in India, moved to Austria to study the art of cooking, and came to Canada in 1989 to work at the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta. Today, he owns three award-winning restaurants in Canada: Vij’s Restaurant, Vij’s Rangoli and My Shanti. He also produces his own line of gourmet take-home meals, Vij’s At Home and runs his food truck, Vij’s Railway Express. Vikram has appeared on Top Chef Canada, Chopped Canada, Recipe to Riches, and in 2014, debuted as the first Indo-Canadian Dragon on the CBC’s Dragons’ Den. He is also a certified sommelier and recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Law from Simon Fraser University.

What was the initial impetus for you to become a chef?

I always wanted to be a Bollywood actor, or a stage actor, because I loved acting and everything about it; the visuals, hands, talking with my eyes, and everything else. Unfortunately, however, my father made it clear that he didn't want anyone in his family becoming an actor. So I asked myself how I could use the creativity that I loved, in singing and dancing, in something else; what could I do? That’s when I decided that I should become a chef, so I went to Austria to study, got my chef’s papers, and became a chef. I really believe that, when the restaurant is open, chefs are like artists, creating great food and great ambiance.

After beginning your experience as a chef in Austria, what brought you to Canada?

There was a gentleman, having dinner in Austria, who was an immigrant himself, and he looked at me and said, “Chefs like you need to come to Canada, because Canada is a great country, with great Terroir, and a place where you could totally succeed and survive as a chef.” So I applied to him and, six months later, he sent me a visa and a one-way ticket to Canada. Then, I came to Banff and worked at the Banff Springs Hotel, for the first three years, until I moved to Vancouver to open up my own restaurants.

To what extent has Canada’s culinary scene evolved since you opened your first restaurant in Vancouver, in 1994?

It’s evolved tremendously, not only as far as the level of cuisine is concerned but also sideways, because people are returning here with new cultural influences. We’re not just doing French cuisine; we’re doing multi-cultural cuisines; Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and so much more. What we’re doing is building a beautiful base for great chefs and vibrant ethnicities to build on. Going into the future, I think we’re going to continue to see more chefs throughout Canada that will take their own cuisines and cultures and use their creativity to bring them up a notch.

I think Canada’s adoption of international cuisines is partially a result of the fact that we lack our own historically well-established cuisine. How would you define Canadian cuisine?

Canada doesn't have a cuisine but instead, a beautiful mosaic of different cuisines; We shouldn't try to define ourselves. The French have it, for example, because they’ve been doing it for such a long time, but we don’t have that history, so how could we have that same established cuisine?

Your restaurants are now recognized to serve some of the best Indian food in the world, but what inspired you to devote your career to Indian cuisine in the first place?

I felt strongly that my cuisine, despite having such a depth of flavour and a complex use of spices, did not get the attention and respect that it deserved; I wanted to bring this respect to Indian cuisine. I’d always dreamed of being a French chef, as that was how I was trained, but the reason why I ultimately decided to cook Indian food and become an Indian chef instead, was because that was my background. I spent the first 19 years of my life in India and I was addicted to the flavors of my own cuisine. I’d always done French, German and Austrian-style cooking in my professional training, but I had actually never approached Indian cooking in the same way. My motivation was to work with Indian cooking in such a way that people would see the French technique come through, and at the same time taste the spices and flavours of Indian culinary tradition. I really became who I was, on the plate.

Do you feel you have a certain responsibility to represent the cuisine of your home?

I definitely felt compelled to change the perception of Indian food in this country, because I felt that people were not showing Indian food the respect that it deserved. It was not the fault of the consumers, however, as many of my peers believed that that this was what people liked, and they did, because it became what they became used to. I wanted to rise above the standard that had been set for Indian food in Canada and, initially, I received a lot of resistance for it, but I knew that this would be what would differentiate myself from other Indian restaurants. Had I just reverted to butter chicken, samosas and chicken tikka masala, I would have been nobody. Instead, I went against the norm, got into trouble, and needed a lot of strength to fight against the stereotypes that existed. It’s taken twenty-four years, now, and I’m still not completely there. There are still people that claim that my food is not authentic, but how much more authentic could it get? It’s Indian food that’s cooked by Indians with so much love, but people still don’t understand it sometimes because, as Indians, we just haven't showcased these nuances of our cooking and cuisine --  in a similar way that many Italians have supported the belief that pasta and pizza alone are Italian cuisine.

In 2014, you made your debut as a Dragon on the popular television series Dragon’s Den. What was this experience like and would you want to do it again?  

It’s funny, because the first thing I told you about was that my dream was actually always to be on stage. Looking back, I’ve now done; Top Chef; Recipes to Riches; Chopped Canada, and then Dragon’s Den; so the whole circles comes back, and I can now look back at my dad and say, “na-na-na-na-na-nah”, because, in spite of the fact that he never wanted me to become an actor, I kind of became one anyways.

At the time, when they were auditioning me for the show, they said,”We like you, but we need you to change a bit; can you become more Bangka looking?” and I told them,”No, I’m not a Bangka and I’m not going to be Bangka looking; I’m a Chef, and I’m going to look the way I do.” I wasn't going to change myself and, because I stayed true to who I was and what I was doing, I didn't feel that I needed to change myself, and I never have. This is the advice that I’d like to share with today’s young people; not to change themselves and become someone they aren't because, if you do, you will just end up becoming confused down the road. You have to adapt to certain things, of course, but you never need to change yourself. What I’m trying to get at is, it was a great experience and it was absolutely the funnest thing I’ve done in a really long time, but it was also an experience that, when I was done with it, I felt kind of finished.

I actually choose to get into Dragons’ Den, not because of the acting but, because I wanted to help young people, by showing them the ropes of what it takes to be successful, both financially and emotionally. Sure enough, as soon as I felt that the show was not what I was expecting it to be, I moved on, but it was all done with much respect. Experience wise, I felt lovely, but would I do it again? Probably not.

What role do you predict that television will play in the culinary world, in the near future?

I think that television can only arouse your senses. It can only make you want to cook that food; you can’t eat the television, or a photograph of a beautiful meal. The television is just a starting point -- it’s the foreplay -- but you still need real food in order to enjoy it. You can look at a plate full of food for as long as you like, but it will never satiate you that way. Food has to satiate you, fill you up, give you energy, provide you with nourishment, and be filled with soul. The role of television is to bring you to that point of anticipation and hunger, and to inspire you to be creative, but after that, you still need to eat and enjoy food.

So television will never act as a replacement for enjoyment that we receive from eating real food.

It never can, and it never should. It’s inspiration -- that’s all.

What are some current and future projects of yours that you’re most excited about?

Since I first started, my goal has always been to bring awareness to my cuisine and my culture. All of the products that I work on are created, in order to bring awareness to parts of the cuisine, culture and history of India. I’ve got so many things going on right now, with five restaurants, two food trucks and all of the food products, but they’re all to bring more awareness to the cuisine and to encourage more people to enjoy Indian food and appreciate how delicious and healthy it really is.

Luciana Bianchi, Journalist

Luciana Bianchi is an Italian-Brazilian journalist, book author and trained chef with a background in Molecular Science. A frequent traveller, polyglot, and food researcher with more than 20 years experience in the field, she has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, cooked for celebrities, interviewed highly acclaimed international chefs, and published work in 15 countries. According to those in the industry, Luciana Bianchi is one of the most influential people working in gastronomy, forming opinion and discovering new talent around the world.

You have an incredibly extensive amount of experience in cooking and food writing; what brought you into gastronomy in the first place?

I come from a family of food lovers and great cooks. However, in Brazil in the 90s, cooking professionally was not an option for young people who had a family with an academic background. In 1990, a friend gave me the book ‘White Heat - Marco Pierre White’ with the photos of Bob Carlos Clark; it impressed me so profoundly that I decided to leave my Business Studies course at University to become a chef. This is probably why I take cookbooks so seriously - one of them changed my life!

With the fast-growing presence of social-media, as well as a multitude of other multi-media outlets in all fields of communication, how is the profession of food writing changing?

Substantially! Communication is now more immediate and available at incredible speeds. You can self publish and there are endless possibilities to communicate opinions and ideas through the social networks. The disadvantage is the abundance of wrong information available in the webspace too. Not all people disseminate real facts, but rather turn personal agendas or weak opinions into "true facts". You must check the sources before trusting what you read online. In gastronomic terms, people who eat in restaurants as a hobby are often believed to be food experts - magazines and newspapers started to accept unqualified people as food writers, as many of them write free of charge, desperate to have their names published.

With such an internationally-based career, is there any one place that you consider “home”?

To be honest, I never had that feeling, even as a child. I was born Brazilian-Italian and multiculturalism is in my blood. I had one Italian grandmother and another Native Brazilian Tupi-Guarani. I was always a restless person, wishing to see the world. I think that the feeling of belonging to a place can lead to division, to nationalistic ideas, and to over protectionism towards one’s own culture. When you travel, you see that we are all part of one world, with similar problems and ideas of happiness - what differs is the "tribe" you belong to, and you can find your tribe anywhere in the world. However, home for me is with my husband, daughter and dog. The location is irrelevant.

What inspired you to collaborate with Peruvian chef Virgilio Martínez of top restaurant, Central, on the book, ‘Lima Cookbook: Peruvian Home Cooking’?

Virgilio initially asked me to make his ‘Central/Mater’ book first. Then, because he wasn't very well known outside the gastronomic scene, we decided to make ‘Lima’ first, the cookbook of contemporary home cooking.

What was the experience and process of conceiving the cookbook like?

This is an unpretentious book and Virgilio wanted to make it simple - a clean and modern design, avoiding any Latin clichés, with easy-to-make dishes representing modern Peru. Central's food will generate a "coffee table" cookbook in the near future, but nobody will buy it with the intention of cooking at home, as it is based on exotic products and avant-garde concepts. On the other hand, ‘Lima - The Cookbook’, is accessible for everyone. With modern ceviche recipes and many light and healthy dishes, anyone can cook from this book, regardless of which country they live in. It is the first Peruvian book with a chapter dedicated to Tiger's Milk, for example. A real big deal for Peruvians! The important information about the products and the cultural context of the dishes are explained in a casual, yet informative, way. The main intention was to share information with foreign friends and to make them love cooking Peruvian food at home. Lima is also the only cookbook in the world with a quote on the cover by a Nobel Prize winner. Very posh - I know!

I’ve visited Peru many times, spending one month in Lima, at Central restaurant, making the food styling and working as photo director with the photographer Erick Andia. The book is now sold in 15 countries, and getting great reviews for its unassuming, yet authentic, presentation of modern Peruvian cooking.

What projects are you currently working on?  

Right now I’m focussing on the next book of Gastón Acurio, and re-editing the 4th edition of ‘Brazilian Food by Thiago Castanho’, the star Amazonian chef of Brazil. I am also an Associate Lecturer at the Basque Culinary Center, focusing on case studies in 5 countries. Ethics, sustainability and humanity shouldn't be treated as academic or fashionable words, but as intrinsic values in the kitchen and in our everyday lives. I try to help students see beyond the glam image of chefs and to add a global and realistic perspective to their formal education. I’m also part of a Laboratory project in South America, uniting scientists, chefs and farmers.

Of all your many internationally acquired food experiences, which of them do you remember most fondly? Which experiences have you yet to check off your bucket-list?

Having the opportunity to experience the kitchens of Massimo Bottura and Grant Achatz changed my perspective regarding my profession. The gala dinner of Elton John with El Bulli and Paco Roncero is one of my fondest memories - we worked hard preparing El Bulli classics, and had lots of fun doing it. Also working for 8 months on a scientific project for Heston Blumenthal and The Fat Duck about Aroma Encapsulation was very special.

My bucket list is not as big as it used to be some years ago. I am fortunate that my work has allowed me to taste the most exquisite products and visit the best restaurants and producers in the world. Because of this, my bucket list is the opposite of what one might expect… I would love to own a farm one day, plant organic vegetables and have farm animals. I could then experience my own food growing around my home and cook for family and friends.

What excites you most about attending this year’s Terroir Symposium?

I am honoured and very excited to be part of it! It is going to be my first time in Toronto and at the event, so I am curious too. I believe that sharing knowledge, experience and ideas is the only way to grow professionally and as human beings. We must learn with each other, observe and listen to various perspectives and opinions to gain a full picture, especially on topics related to technology, culture and areas involving humanities. I hope to be able to contribute to the event by sharing my experiences, and also to learn a lot from all of you.