The 2009 Feast of Fields celebration in the garden at Rouge Restaurant brought together local producers and some of Calgary’s best chefs to highlight what our region has to offer.

In the warm, dappled late-summer shade of Rouge Restaurant’s sprawling Inglewood garden, crooner Rob Young sings “Nice and easy does it every time,” as I savour a small dish of slow-cooked shoulder of wild boar and soft Grana Padano polenta topped with Coronation grapes and a wedge of rosemary focaccia. It’s the kind of magic moment that the eighth annual Feast of Fields and Slow Food Calgary is all about.

The event (held this year on September 13) pairs city chefs with local farmers and the culinary combinations produce exceptional dishes. Chef Christian Picek of Il Sogno created the above dish using European wild boar meat raised by Hog Wild Specialties of Mayerthorpe. The stewed boar looks as good as it tastes against the light-yellow polenta. The lightly sweet grapes pop in a satisfying burst. “Anytime wild boar is paired with something sweet, it turns out fantastic,” says William Hagman who is here representing Hog Wild. He’s clearly proud of his family’s sustainably grown meat. “There’s nothing you can compare the taste of wild boar to. It’s unique, not gamey. It tastes like pork, but it’s something all on its own.”

His parents Earl and Debbie established the business and he and his brother are now transitioning into it. The Hagmans sell boar cuts (bacon, ribs, loins, shanks, etc.) to restaurants across the province and also market wild boar products like jerky, prosciutto and terrine. Originally a cattle and grain farmer, William’s father decided to diversify his operation with boar as they are well-suited to his wet, bushy land. While the Alberta cattle industry still feels the hammer blow of the BSE crisis, and the domestic pig business teeters on oblivion, the family’s boar business has slowly, steadily grown along with the demand for locally grown meat and produce.

It’s this transition away from large-scale industrial agriculture with its economies of scale and global market vagaries that the Slow Food organization trumpets. Slow Food was born in Italy in 1989 as a reaction to the industrialization of food culture. Today, the organization claims 100,000 members in 132 countries, with 1,000 local chapters. It ambitiously seeks to protect our gastronomic heritage of small-scale, independent food producers selling to local markets. Its aim is to restore the timeless pleasures of cuisine culture being lost in a fast-paced world and to promote healthy, sustainably produced, better-tasting food. Calgary’s Slow Food chapter has been particularly active. Feast of Fields, with its 20 chefs, 50 agricultural producers and all-volunteer staff highlights the passion of its members.

“In Calgary, we’ve passed that critical mass,” says Karen Anderson, 2009 Feast of Fields co-ordinator. “We have a bona fide Slow Food scene.” She surveys the large, cheerful crowd eating, drinking, laughing and schmoozing in the Rouge garden. For urbanites who may not be able to grow sizeable gardens, she says, the next best thing is to get to know your local producer. She stresses that while this is a great garden party, it’s about making these connections and the point is to make an impact on consumers. To this end, the group has also launched The Alberta Snail Trail, a consumer guidebook that lists local producers as well as where to find their produce year-round. It will be available at Slow Food events and upon request from the organization. The Snail Trail blog will be launched on the group’s website this October.

Anderson explains that, in Calgary, the movement was founded by a number of local chefs who were ahead of their time. They guessed that their customers might want local produce at a time when little of it was offered on city menus. They were right and the demand by chefs and consumers for locally grown produce has grown by leaps. “Now more and more chefs have come through the culinary program at SAIT where there’s a heavy influence on that,” she says. “Some have trained in Italy where Slow Food started. It’s this very positive-feedback loop that is ever expanding.”

One of these early adopter chefs is Dwayne Ennest, owner of Open Range, Diner Deluxe and Big Fish and the original chef at The River Café. Today, he’s paired with Noble Duck Farms, one of his regular suppliers, and Edgar Farms. Taking a short break from preparing food under his table’s white tent top, Ennest explains that he’s preparing duck breast with a bit of jerk rub, Edgar Farms’ asparagus pickle, flavoured mayonnaise, pea shoots and a chibatta bun. He’s also doing a duck confit with truffle on sourdough bread that features pickled asparagus spears and goat yoghurt.

“Getting to know what sustainability is all about is everybody’s responsibility,” he says. He’s pleased to see that local farm produce is coming back into its own as consumers purchase more and more. “If we don’t do it, we’re going to lose all our local farms. That would be a disaster. Years ago, this is how it was done. Thank God it’s going back to the old days where you had a great farm product and you supported it.”

I top the day with a Brûlée Patisserie cherry, peach and nectarine gallette made with fruit supplied by Fraiche Fine Foods. Sara Bell, one of Brûlée’s two pastry chefs, laughs as she tells me “gallette” is in fact an actual word, not a made-up one, and that it’s simply an unformed pie. I wash the fruity, flaky beauty down with a sample of Tantalus Reisling, a stellar British Columbia wine. “You’re marvelous, too marvelous for words,” Rob Young sings as his band, Simply Sinatra, backs him from between sunny rows of garden produce. I couldn’t agree more. Slow Food is magic.