New York slams Canadians for not “doing their homework” on Coco cookbook
In a recent finger-wagging post on New York‘s food blog, Grub Street, Daniel Maurer chastises the top figures of Canada’s culinary scene for not “doing their homework” before signing a petition that protested the lack of Canucks in Coco: 10 World-Leading Masters Choose 100 Contemporary Chefs. Turns out that there are actually two Canadians featured in the book after all:
You’d think such staunch advocates of the Canadian culinary scene would’ve known that Anna Hansen of the Modern Pantry in London was born in Montreal. (Fergus Henderson singled her out for inclusion in the book). And Hugh Acheson, a favorite of Mario Batali’s, started his career in his native Ottawa (he’s now the chef at the National, Five & Ten, and Gosford Wine in Athens, Georgia). As another product of Ottawa once said: “Isn’t it ironic?”
Oops? Well, sort of.
We went back into our files from last July and dug up the petition. It doesn’t exactly say that the book lacks Canadians, but rather that “there is a wealth of vital, emerging talent in Canada’s culinary community. To not include any of these young Canadians chefs in COCO leaves a rather large hole in the book.” It also asks Phaidon, the book’s publisher, to “look Northward to Canada to fill that last spot.”
Ignore the petition’s split infinitive and allow us to split this hair: seems as though our most esteemed foodies wanted to include a chef that was actually cooking in Canada, not merely born here.
Seems as though that homework allergy is going around these days.
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