LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2017

FIVE qUESTIONS WITH…

BY CYNTHIA DAVID  •  PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB FIOCCA

WAYNE MORRIS, CHEF AND CO-OWNER BORALIA, TORONTO, BORALIATO.COM

C hef Wayne Morris has cooked from Halifax to Kelowna, B.C. He was raised in Nova Scotia, where he learned to fish, hunt and raise animals at an early age. The Acadian and Metis meals prepared by his mother and grandmother made him appreciate the history behind early Canadian dishes, a theme he and his wife, Evelyn Wu, explore at their three-year-old restaurant, Boralia, in downtown Toronto.

At Boralia am I really eating something early Canadians would have eaten? We take the main ingredients from the original recipe and prepare them in a modern way. Pemmican, for example, was essentially a protein bar made with dried game meat pounded and mixed with melted animal fat, berries and nuts. We dry bison in the tra- dition of bresaola, add torched house-made lardo for fat and dress it with a juniper and wild-blueberry vinaigrette. Where do you go from here? As the restaurant evolves and we learn what diners are eager to try, I go back to my cook- book collection. Recipes I may have dismissed before jump out at me every time I look at them with fresh eyes. My current favourite Canadian cookbook is Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens by the late Halifax food writer Marie Nightingale, first published in 1970.

Where does the name Boralia come from? Boralia is derived from one of the names suggested for Canada at the time of Con- federation. We could all have been Borealians! What surprised you most when you began to research Canadian dishes from the past? The broadness of the spectrum. It can include anything, really, from the foods of the First Nations to the French settlers, from the Chinese who came for the Gold Rush to the British. What does the term Canadian cuisine mean to you? Canadian cuisine reflects the melting pot of cultures and nationalities of the people who built this country. It’s a mix of the dishes people brought with them when they immigrated here and how they’ve adapted based on available ingredients and the influence of their traditional foods and culture.

New Canadians adapt their traditional foods using available ingredients. At Boralia, we do the same thing modernizing foods early Canadians would have eaten.

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176  FOOD & DRI NK SUMMER 2017