Dig In! Horticulinary Festival provides food for thought

The harvest season produces a yummy cornucopia of edibles, and what better time to sniff out the newest food festival on the block.

Most food festivals focus on noshing locally sourced edibles. The inaugural Dig In! Horticulinary Festival takes it up a notch hosting a gala dinner, interactive workshops and short sessions on growing produce and making foodstuffs.

The public is also invited to sign up for the hot pepper eating challenge and enter a retro-style pumpkin pie contest.

A City of St. Albert initiative, the festival takes place at the Enjoy Centre, Bellerose High and Hog’s Head Brewery on Oct. 10 and 11.

“We wanted to build a signature event that would build our brand and complement our brand,” said City of St. Albert economic development officer Dawn Fedorvich.

“St. Albert shows a lot of strength in growing plants. There’s the botanic park, the community gardens and our reputation as a green space, and we’ve worked to include this with a culinary festival. It’s all about growing and eating local food. It’s what separates us from other festivals.”

This showcase of foodie events is also driven by a swelling tide of educated consumers that want to know where and how food is grown.

“It’s that connection to food. People want to know if food is healthy and does it have pesticides. The local movement is “growing in our back yard.” The younger generation is looking to connect with food, and the festival is very interactive. You see how food is put together.”

Fedorvich has organized a series of Saturday workshops designed to broaden a home cook’s personal knowledge of food and sharpen their culinary skills.

The Enjoy Centre is the main venue. The hands-on workshops range from learning to grow micro greens in the house to charcuterie, the plating of cold dishes with cold meats, cheeses and vegetables.

The household handyman can learn to build a hoop house to extend a growing season or get sticky hands stuffing sausage meat in fat casings.

“You’ll be grinding meats and stuffing them in tubes and you’ll leave with sausage to cook at home.”

Bellerose High School kitchens are the focal point for making jam and pickles. And if you’re a pie-eyed baker, a professional chef is teaching bread making and how to bake a delectable Smoky Lake pumpkin and chai cheesecake.

Over at Hog’s Head Brewery, St. Albert’s only micro brewery, there will be craft beer sampling including the seasonally brewed ale Death By Pumpkin.

The festival unveiling is Friday night, with a seven-course gala dinner. A complete sellout at 250 tickets, guests may discover their expanding waistlines need a quick jog the following day.

Celebrity chef Blair Lebsack, owner of RGE RD restaurant and recently named a Top Forty Foodie under 40 by Western Living magazine and Avenue magazine, helmed the gala from the start.

“This won’t be a formal dinner. But we are making sure the service and food meet the standards of a high-end restaurant,” Lebsack said.

Using his expertise and wide network of colleagues, Lebsack invited a lineup of six highly acclaimed chefs from across the Edmonton area and Calgary to each cook one of the courses.

Chefs from Edmonton include Steven Furgiuele (Culina Mill Creek), Danielle Job (Holt Renfrew CafĂ©), Brad Lazarenko (Culina), Doreen Prei (Petroleum Club) and St. Albert’s Julia Kundera from The Glasshouse Bistro.

Driving up from Calgary is Jan Hansen, a chef at Heritage Park, and Karine Moulin, a pastry chef at Hotel Arts. Moulin has been dubbed “wizard of whisks” and is a past contestant on Season 4 of Top Chef Canada.

Guests will be treated to elegant gourmet delights that range from a gluten free mushroom wellington and sparrow’s nest roasted with squash to a trout dish, pork with succotash and elk strip loin. The dessert chaser is pumpkin and chai pie.

“It’s a tasting menu. It’s all about moderation and producing a clean, fresh flavour. We’re not going to overload the menu so by the second or third course people forget what they’re eating. It’s going to be served in small bites,” explained Lebsack.

Event organizers have worked hard to differentiate this festival from other functions. For Lebsack, the great thing is the collaboration of artistic chefs that ordinarily may not have the opportunity to create as an ensemble.

“When you bring chefs together, there’s a whole new bond. We met several times and it really brings together the Edmonton food scene. And you get to learn more about the chefs from Calgary. Everyone hits a different note, yet we’re all staying within the boundaries.”

Saturday is packed with workshops and short 25-minute free demonstrations ranging from Thanksgiving floral arrangements, companion planting and fall pruning to heritage grains, lasagna gardening, honey, and blending oil and vinaigrettes.

The festival ends in a fireball of fun with a hot pepper eating contest at 3:30 p.m. where competitors may need an asbestos-lined mouth to survive the heat.

Jim Hole imported seeds for the Trinidad moruga scorpion, the world’s hottest pepper and grew it at the Enjoy Centre.

The heat a pepper produces is measured in Scoville units. Contestants will be offered a bell pepper (zero units), a jalapeńo (5,000 units), a Serrano pepper (25,000) and a Trinidad scorpion (2 million).

Harold Pacheco, a marketing specialist for economic development, offered to sample the scorpion as part of the festival’s marketing campaign.

“When I put it in my mouth, it was a gradual increase from sweet to hot. You know how when you watch cartoons, the smoke comes out their ears. Well, I was actually feeling like that. My tongue was almost numb from the heat. My ears were burning and I was starting to sweat a bit. I went quiet for once. I couldn’t focus on anything but the heat in my mouth,” Pacheco chuckled at the memory.

“I have a whole new appreciation for milk,” he added. Hot peppers contain an alkaline oil called capsaicin that produces a burning sensation. Dairy (milk, yogurt and sour cream) is acidic and helps to neutralize the burning by breaking up the capsaicin.

So far, city councillors Cathy Heron and Gilles Prefontaine as well as local firefighters are attempting to beat the odds. However, Fedorvich encourages extreme sport aficionados with a spicy palate to enter. She can be reached at 780-459-1743.

Workshops are $20 each or three for $50. Main stage sessions are free. For a detailed list of events, visit diginstalbert.ca.