Good tidings from Jamie Kennedy

A pioneer of contemporary Canadian cuisine and the author of two acclaimed cookbooks, Jamie Kennedy is one of Canada’s most celebrated and talented chefs. His passion and advocacy for sustainable practices in agriculture, fishing and husbandry have formed

By the time you read this, celebrated chef and seasoned gate-to-plate food activist, Jamie Kennedy, will have placed his culinary signature on “An Evening at the Savoy,” Northumberland Hills Hospital Foundation’s 2009 fundraiser. Leading up to this event Kennedy’s immeasurable talent wowed attendees at Feast of Fields’ 20th year anniversary celebration (of which Kennedy is a co-founder), nourished 350 auction goers at the “Cinema Against AIDS” benefit held during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and played host at a $10 per person recession-friendly corn roast and clam bake at his Gilead Café. Factor in four kids, Gilead’s “The Local Food Movement” dinner series, Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner’s “Lunch & Learn” program, a thriving catering business and a working farm in Prince Edward County and, suffice to say, the daybed in the corner of his office no longer looks out of place.

Kennedy fidgets; his body—even sitting—is constantly in motion. Idleness, it appears, is not his strong suit. As unfamiliar, I suspect, as a two-week laid-back vacation. It makes me wonder what he was like as a kid and if his upbringing shaped his career path. I ask.

Kennedy grins, “You’d have to ask my mother.”

Silence fills the room. I get it: he doesn’t do personal. I wait him out.

“I finished high school at 17 and felt I was too young to go immediately to university. I had wanderlust. I wanted to go to Europe. So I thought I’d work in a restaurant kitchen for a year [to save for the trip]. I loved the whole theatrical nature of restaurants. I used to watch Julia Child. I was taken with her and her presentation of cooking on television. The job I was offered was a three-year concurrent apprenticeship at a hotel [half the time working within the hotel kitchen brigade, the other half in a George Brown College classroom] in Toronto. For a kid that up to this point had been groomed to go to university, it was like I came home and announced I was joining the military.”

This was 1974. A time when working in a kitchen wasn’t considered a profession. Kennedy’s parents wanted more than a trade for their son.

Kennedy opens up, “I was a bit unruly as a kid. I wasn’t really focused. Very high energy. Loved sports. Loved being outside. Didn’t like studying so much. It didn’t take them very long to come around to the idea. My parents thought, you know what, maybe the structure would be very good for Jamie.” Upon graduation in ’77, Kennedy made his way to Europe and finessed his training as Journeyman Cook for two years in what he describes as a “gradual awakening to gastronomy”.

Returning to Toronto, Kennedy opened what is now one of the city’s most renowned and respected restaurants, Scaramouche. Modeled on the French three-star system, Kennedy was uncompromising in his attention to detail, use of quality, seasonal ingredients, and faultless service. Media accolades flowed. Kennedy’s reputation as a pioneer of contemporary Canadian cuisine soared. But it wasn’t until he opened Palmerston Restaurant in 1985 that his own definitive style emerged. Nurturing lifelong relationships with local and regional artisan producers greatly influenced what he chose to put on the plate. Ecological systems’ concerns and the welfare of our environment championed Kennedy to speak out for such causes as the Endangered Fish Alliance, World Wildlife Foundation, Living Ocean Society and Seafood Watch, to name but a few. Says Kennedy,” I want to tie in the idea that we are exploiting nature’s bounty for short term economic gain and stress the importance of re-establishing equilibrium.” To this end Kennedy’s become a roll model to emerging chefs who want to embrace the ideology around local food procurement. He factors his days to include mentoring staff in the art of snout-to-tail butchery and usage. Side trips to the farms in which the animals were humanly raised are not uncommon either.

“Forging lasting relationships between cities, the public and restaurateurs and local growers and purveyors are completely viable options,” states Kennedy, “I think the post-war industrial food era has runs its course. The cost of food [back then] was brought down to a point where every middle class North American household could afford to put just about anything on their table at anytime. The model of the local mixed family farm disappeared because the costs inherent with running a small artisan based operation are going to be higher than that of an assembly line approach to agriculture. I think it’s just a question of where you are in your food [culture] evolution.”

“I realized 15 or 20 years ago when I’d already achieved this level of success or fame within the fine dining world that celebrity could be a powerful tool. The community at large tends to listen to people who are quote-on-quote famous. Celebrity brings currency to the cause,” says Kennedy. And for that, local and regional farmers, ranchers, food artisans and Joe Public can truly be thankful.