Order up! - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

As I approach 20 years of living in Huron County this October, this issue in particular offers me an opportunity to reflect on the food culture of Huron County and how it has changed (or not changed) in the time that I’ve been here. One thing that has changed, to be sure, is how I interface with it and what it has meant to me over the years.

 

When I first moved to Huron County, like most people of my age from urban centres, we were beholden to the supermarket. Everything you need, all in one place. Perfect. Now, in the city, there were always specialty shops. You had your favourite butcher shop, your favourite bakery and maybe even an ethnic food shop or restaurant or two that you liked (in my corner of Pickering, we had an Indian bakery that sold naan bread by the metre in garbage bags and, like a chopped cheese in Manhattan, every corner store could be counted on as a reliable purveyor of Jamaican beef patties), but, for the most part, you did your business at your local supermarket.

 

Like many supermarkets in Ontario today, this meant a distance from the producers of your food. Everything was available, all year round and you had no idea where it came from. When I moved to Huron County, the first aspect of its food culture that I fell in love with was the availability of things right from the source. The number of farm stands that sold corn and other vegetables. It was hard to drive anywhere and not see small signs advertising that they had eggs, honey, maple syrup or meat for sale.

 

Then I fell in love with butcher shops, especially Green’s in Wingham, but also Shanahan’s in Goderich. At Green’s seeing the folks in the back, butchering animals that had been brought in from local farms gave this carnivore a warm fuzzy feeling in his arteries. When I would buy a box of burgers or steaks and bring them home for a weekend of golf and barbecue with a few friends, the box would often have smudges of blood on it. That, my friends, is called authenticity. We thought a lot about those smudges and the quality that they communicated to us.

 

I continue to feel this way, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, when I really dove head-first into the world of cooking, learning new techniques and preparing new dishes. The quality of everything we can get around here, without a whole lot of fuss, is truly astounding. It is the envy of visitors every time I prepare a meal for them and I do sincerely believe that we sometimes take it for granted. 

 

Now, in recent years, as Jess and I have taken more of an interest in some of the best restaurants this country has to offer, it has amazed me how many times that town names I know, farms I know and products I know have come up in conversation. Superstar Canadian chef Matty Matheson gets weekly deliveries from Linton Pasture Pork for Prime Seafood Palace, his Michelin-recognized restaurant in Toronto. Eric Robertson and Daniel Hadida from Restaurant Pearl Morissette regularly feature Linton’s pork on their menus, in addition to Huron County cheese and butter; theirs is the best restaurant in Canada, third-best in North American and the winner of two Michelin Stars. And the list goes on.

 

The food being grown here, by the farmers of Huron, Bruce, Perth and Grey Counties and beyond, is the envy of the food world. When the well-dressed, impressive people of the world are hearing about their food in top Toronto and Montreal restaurants, they are hearing about local farming and nodding. We are doing a good job and the world is noticing.