Page 38 - SHARP September 2022

BEYOND THE PLATE
ADRIAN FORTE WANTS TO EXPAND YOUR MIND AND YOUR PALATE
By Meghan Davidson Ladly
ADRIAN FORTE IS MISSING HIS LAPTOP. IT STAYED
behind for repairs in the Turks and Caicos while Forte had a plane to catch, and consequently we are conducting this interview on the fly via his cell. Rigorous travel is not new for Forte. He is on a plane again in six days, busy celebrating the launch of his first cookbook, Yawd: Modern Afro-Caribbean Recipes. Yawd is close to the bone of Forte’s personal and culinary identities, and it ties into his broader project of redefining assumptions about Afro-Caribbean food.
Forte became a household name after making it to the semifinals of season eight of Top Chef Canada. But before coming to Toronto and pursuing culinary studies, Forte spent time working in New York as a transplant from Kingston, Jamaica. The flavours and dishes of his childhood remained a constant in his life abroad, eventually finding their way
into the core of who he is as a chef. The structure and flavours of classic Afro-Caribbean spices, like nutmeg, allspice, and thyme, weave harmoni- ously with ginger, garlic, and Scotch bonnet. Yet there is a decidedly mod- ern profile to recipes such as callaloo carbonara, Caribbean-spiced steamed fish, and cassava and cod latkes. Forte seeks to educate through the palate, and to bring island ingredients into more Canadian kitchens. With his new cookbook, he is continuing this mission.
Do you have a first food memory?
My family was very religious. We were the church kids. We would go to church literally every day. You come home from school, do homework, have dinner, and then go to church, and then you’re there ‘till midnight.
When we’re driving home from church, you pass all these jerk vendors. You’d have like 15 to 20 different guys, all making jerk chicken, their own variations. And you would see people out late at night all dressed up ready to go to parties, going to the dancehall. Parties in Jamaica started at like two o’clock in the morning — you literally wake up at 2 a.m, shower and get ready and leave. That was a very profound moment because all I knew at the time was school, homework, church, hanging out with my friends, playing cricket, playing soccer. Seeing that different type of life- style and that different side of Jamaica was very eye-opening for me. I always relate jerk to nightlife and partying, and it made me want to get into cooking in the sense that it just looked so exciting. Everybody was dressed up and they had all this jewellery on. It was very Jamaican.
You have spoken about wanting to correct people’s assumptions that Afro-Caribbean food cannot be haute cuisine. Why is this important to you?
A big part of the reason why I do what I do is because I get messages all the time from young multi-ethnic or Afro-Caribbean chefs — literally, I just got one before our call — saying, “I’ve been following you since I was in high school, now I’m in culinary school, and you made me realize that these things are attainable.” The chefs that have come before us have already done the groundwork. We’re pushing it even further to see where we can take it for the people who are going to come after us. I’m going to try to go as far
as I can so it’s easier for the next chef.
What are some of the challenges to making that happen?
There is no long line of investors looking to open Afro-Caribbean restaurants. They don’t know enough about African-Caribbean food to care about it. As much as these young cooks are finding their own culinary identity wanting to cook this type of food, more than likely, they’re not going to have that opportunity, because they’re going to have to take a job in a restaurant that’s more Eurocentric, because that’s what’s available. Being able to provide this next generation of cooks with an op- portunity is super important to me. If I can establish myself or get a couple restaurants up and running, then it’ll show these investors that this type of cuisine can be haute cuisine. It might open up their eyes and make them want to invest in these types of restaurants. So that’s part of the goal as well — to get the right eyes to look at this cuisine with a differ- ent lens and to appreciate it more.
How did the idea of creating a cookbook arise?
It was a ripple effect. I went to Jamaica in 2019 and I got really inspired; I was cooking off the land that my friend has built on there. I was picking ripe coconuts and making fresh coconut milk and then brining my chicken in coconut milk. The chickens were making fresh eggs every day. I was foraging for Scotch bonnets and thyme. You didn’t really have to go to a grocery store. And I was frying things in coconut oil, which I’d never done before. So that sparked this new interest in me.
Prior to that, I did a little bit of cooking of Afro-Caribbean cuisine, but it was more of a fusion aspect. I had just finished Top Chef, and I basically just figured out what I wanted my culinary identity to be. I told myself I was going to cook the food that I like. If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. If they do like it, great.
What distinguishes these dish- es from traditional Caribbean cuisine?
I wanted to cook the things that I eat at home. It’s modern Caribbean
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FOOD
IMAGE BY JOHN MOLINA