Cookbooks: A Feast for All Seasons by Andrew George Jr. with Robert Gairns

When A Feast for All Seasons was first published in 1997, the food world was at a very different place. Since that time, we’ve discovered slow food and the 100 mile diet and the green movement has grown legs and learned how to run. As a result, there has never been a better time to publish a book that focuses on the cuisine of the aboriginal people of North America. Especially since it’s a type and style of eating that has often been overlooked.

This new edition of A Feast for All Seasons is published by Arsenal Pulp Press and it makes an interesting addition to a line up of cookbooks that are often eyebrow-raising, but always interesting.

Since A Feast for All Seasons mostly focuses on native cuisines from the peoples from the west coast of North America, readers will be unsurprised to find a very good selection of recipes for sea creatures. Lots of traditional treatments for salmon and clams, but also preparations of herring roe, sturgeon, trout and the oily little eulachons that feature so prominently in many of the diets of the native peoples of the west coast.

Also in abundance: recipes for various types of the fry bread known as bannock as well as recipes for various types of game. In fact, those who have reason to need to be able to do well by venison, moose meat and even beaver meat will want to add this book to their collection at once as will those who enjoy cookbooks a little off the beaten path. ◊

Sienna Powers is a transplanted Calgarian who lives and works in Vancouver, B.C. She is a writer and conceptual artist.