Saskatchewan-based food series began with agricultural love

The worlds of food and agriculture have always been an interest to Jenn Sharp.

Growing up on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, many happy hours were spent in the combine or pick up truck while also helping to feed hungry people with her mom and grandma. In university, Sharp spent 15 years working in the restaurant industry so when it came time to start working as a journalist, naturally her column, Sharp Eats, was about food and exploring the restaurant scene in Saskatoon.

Sharp told farmnewsNOW she wanted to take the column beyond what restaurants were buying in bulk and how the dish looks on the plate.

“I didn’t know how much was going on in our local food scene in Saskatchewan and how farmers are innovating, and doing things differently, and choosing not to go that conventional big Ag route, and choosing something different for their families.”

Even with her column about local ingredients being used in Saskatoon and Regina, Sharp didn’t know the full extent of Saskatchewan food production until she started the research for her book.

The first week of work was enough to inundate Sharp with ideas and stories that opened her eyes to the extent of Saskatchewan food production. She had developed a large number of sources through her work with the column and mapped out a 20,000 kilometre journey for her and her photographer, Richard Marjan, while also starting her “Flat Out Food” social media campaign.

Hitting the road in 2018, Sharp said it was a lot of boots on the ground, old style journalism. Some of these operations didn’t even have websites or a social media presence given their size so much of the research involved Sharp talking to chefs she already knew about where their supplies were coming from.

“Then you get to the farm and you start talking to them about who’s growing organic feed for their chickens down the road or you name it right and then all these stories just kept coming from it and so it was quite an organic evolving process.”

These humble beginnings as a column in the LeaderPost and StarPhoenix newspapers and her journeys across the province have now turned into a book, Flat Out Delicious, and a television series called, Flat Out Food, now on its second season on CityTV.

In her book, Sharp highlights the five regions of Saskatchewan and “barely scratches the surface” of all the artisans that create Saskatchewan-based cuisine, Sharp writes in the introduction. With each region, she profiles different cafes, bakeries, restaurants, and bistros that bring flavour to the province while later delving deep in how and where their ingredients come from, from farms to farmer’s markets.

Each episode carries a theme while featuring Saskatchewan grown products, from things that can be grown to things that can be gathered, while profiling the people who harvest it to the people that create flavourful dishes with it.

“It ended up being this place to really explore like ingredients that chefs were using and the stories behind them, and then also diving into the local food scene a bit around Saskatoon and Regina and throughout Saskatchewan kind of looking at what different growers are doing and things that were a bit out of the norm.”

The best part of the creation process was physically going to the farms and meeting people who are doing amazing and different things with food, she said, from beekeepers to chocolatiers to bakers to even exploring Saskatchewan fish farms.

For Sharp, this was important to see things from the angles of sustainability, animal husbandry, and land stewardship perspective.

“I wanted to see the farm and meet them and get a feel for it all first hand so I would feel okay recommending them to people that would read the book one day.”

While producers need to create financially stable operations, Sharp said she wanted to look beyond that into what they are doing for things like soil health, either with traditional or new methods and how they are recognizing that connection to the land.

Jenn Sharp and Lorenzo Brazzini of the Cure Artisanal Charcuterie on set for Flat Out Food’s second season. Jenn’s trying a slice of Lorenzo’s three-year aged prosciutto. (Photo credit: Flat Out Food Productions)

“If you look at regenerative and organic and conventional I think we can all learn from one another and create something that’s quite beneficial for everyone going forward.”

Connecting people outside the agriculture industry with their food has been an important goal for Sharp for multiple reasons.

According to a survey in April 2019 from Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma, the majority of Canadians are confused about food marketing while many also see the importance of knowing where and how their food is made.

The current relationship people have with their food has got to change, said Sharp.

“It’s become a form of sustenance and we’re fueling our bodies with a lot of hyper processed, fast food, junk foods and I really think it’s one of the reasons behind the chronic disease and obesity and type two diabetes epidemic that we have.”

The amount of food that is imported, excluding many regionally specific foods that can’t be grown in Saskatchewan, is too high for the amount and kinds of food that can be grown in the province.

Especially with the impact the COVID pandemic has had on both international and local economies, 2020 has really shown us the importance of focusing on local industries and the possible weaknesses of global supply chains, said Sharp.

“We have a really strong, thriving local food system in Saskatchewan and the food tastes delicious and it supports our local economy as well…People are getting excited about it, they’re learning more about it and I’ve seen more people talking about it than I ever have in this last year and that to me is really encouraging.”

Full episodes of Flat Out Food can be streams at citytv.com.

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim