Tomorrow is
election day in Canada.
It’s been a long campaign. It’s been an aberrantly and abhorrently caustic campaign.
As we waded
through attack ads, endured dog whistles, and sifted through fictions presented
as facts, many of us remembered what it was like to be Canadian.
Canadian.
Not the
hawkish, divisive and belligerent archetype some try to frighten and bully us
into being, but the humanitarian, inclusive and reserved people we have been
and (I believe) still are.
Throughout
the past 78 days I saw people hold true to the unspoken but understood simple
truth about Canadian society, that Calgary mayor, Naheed Nenshi, addressed at the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium:
Nous sommes ici ensemble.
We’re in this together.
We are our
shared experiences and shared emotions.
Our neighbour’s pain is our pain.
Our neighbour’s strength is our strength. Our neighbour’s joy is our
joy. It doesn’t matter what we look
like, where our parents or grandparents came from, how we worship, whom we
love—or any other artifice of division or classification encoded upon us—we all
deserve to live a great Canadian life, in the Canada we hope for.
As Michael Rowe wrote,
in Canada the words “take our country back” are not a right-wing rallying cry
of reactionary racism that celebrates and prioritizes white, Christian,
heterosexual hegemony. In Canada, “take
our country back” is the cri de coeur
for a return to an era when being Canadian meant aspiring to something greater
than it currently is. Something greater
than decimating, selling and shedding the entities and endeavours that help to
define Canadian culture and identity—the CBC, the Wheat Board, environmental
protection of thousands of our rivers and lakes, peacekeeping.
I saw many
people take our country back during the campaign period. People stood up to bullies and called out
fibbers. Religious freedom was defended when peddlers of fear vilified women in veils. Average people stepped in and sponsored
Syrian refugees because the government stepped out and fell down. Democracy was revived through new and
innovative get out the vote programs for marginalised populations.
In their own
ways, they were rebuilding our society to one that resembled more closely the Canada we hope for.
In his
speech, Nenshi recounted a family devastated by the 2013 Calgary floods. As
they sat in their nearly destroyed home, they didn’t focus on what they no longer
had. They focussed on what were about to
have: a hot, homemade shepherd’s
pie. One of the relief effort’s
thousands of community volunteers cooked and delivered a hot meal to this
family. It was that unspoken but understood simple truth about Canadian
society.
So today I
offer you a shepherd’s pie in anticipation of tomorrow’s vote. It’s warm and comforting, and with Middle
Eastern flavours, it celebrates the multicultural mosaic that makes our country
stronger and better.
Parce que nous sommes ici ensemble.
Middle-Eastern
shepherd’s pie
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients
For the mashed potatoes:
450g/1lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and
quartered
55g/60ml/0.25c butter, melted
100ml/a generous 0.33c buttermilk, plus
more, if needed
salt
For the filling
Olive oil
450g/1lb ground lamb
1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
35g/2Tbsp/30ml tomato paste
1tsp/5ml ground cumin
1tsp/5ml ground allspice
1tsp/5ml ground coriander
1tsp/5ml cinnamon
0.5tsp/2.5ml pepper
1 pinch ground nutmeg
50g/75ml/6Tbsp sultanas, plumped in
water
0.5c/125ml beef stock, lamb stock, or
water
1Tbsp/15ml Worcester sauce
30g/60ml/0.25c toasted pine nuts
1 handful chopped parsley
Method
Make the mashed potatoes in the usual
way. Set aside.
Brown the lamb and remove from pan,
leaving any fat in the pan. Sweat the onions, celery and carrots in the lamb
fat. Add the garlic and stir until the air is perfumed with its scent. Remove
the veg from the pan. Add some olive oil
and fry the tomato paste until it deepens in colour. Return the sweated veg to the pan and add the
cumin, allspice, coriander, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg. Stir for about a minute before returning the
meat to the pan. Tumble in the sultanas
and stir well.
Add stock and enough water to cover the
mixture. Pour in the Worcestershire
sauce. Stir and bring to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes before slowing the
hob to a simmer and let blip (uncovered) until a thick sauce clings to the
meat.
While the mixture reduces, preheat the
oven to 190C/375F.
Add the nuts and work through the
parsley. Balance flavours to taste.
Tip the mixture into an ovenproof pan or
dish. Top with the mashed potatoes. Fluff and style the potatoes in the usual
way, so as to create as many opportunities for browned, crunchy bits. Drizzle
with olive oil. Bake until the potatoes
are burnished to satisfaction.
Let cool for about 5-10 minutes before
serving.
Notes:
- Instead of lamb, used minced beef (or a combination of the two).
- Almonds can be substituted for pine nuts.
- Use the raisins’ plumping water when cooking the meat mixture as it will add some of the raisins’ sweetness to the dish.
- If you're lucky to have celery with its leaves, mince those leaves and stir through with the parsley.
cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!
