♪
Toronto, my home town,
the city my family and I emigrated to,
arriving from Egypt when I was just three years old.
The city where I grew up, started acting,
and fell in love with food.
It's a city famously known for its diversity,
with almost half the population made up of immigrants,
making it one of the most
multicultural cities on the planet.
And because it attracts so many people,
it's accelerating and transforming Toronto.
Growth is everywhere; from construction cranes
to tech hubs to film studios, the city's exploding.
And the plant-based food scene's no different.
Because so many families just like mine
immigrated here from all over the globe,
it's created one of the most unique gastronomies anywhere.
You name the dish, we got it.
We are gonna dive in to a Toronto food adventure
to check out how this ever-changing town
and all these cultures
put their own unique mark on the city's palate.
This ain't Hogtown anymore,
and I cannot wait to share it with you.
Welcome to my house.
♪
I'm Mena Massoud.
I'm travelling across North America
and eating my way through some of the coolest cities
to show you how beautiful meals,
talented chefs and restaurateurs
are making plant-based living delicious and attainable.
So join me as I show you
how the world is evolving vegan.
♪
We're jumping down to a place
that exemplifies the mix in the 6ix,
a food market called Smorgasburg Toronto.
It's a snapshot of the culinary mosaic
the city has on tap,
and a spot where many aspiring chefs
take fledgling steps towards their very first restaurants.
It's not a fully vegan festival.
Between the scores of food carts,
there are so many plant-based options
from vendors who are absolutely killing it.
I'm with my friend Matthew Ravenscroft,
an acclaimed chef and culinary director
at the upscale plant-based Italian eatery Gia,
where he's working to create delicious veg-forward food.
You described yourself as the imperfect vegan,
which is basically Evolving Vegan's mantra.
I think any effort's better than none.
That's kind of what I try to do with food.
It's like, listen, you don't have to get it right,
but if you try, we're going to see some positive impacts.
And kind of cooking vegetables
and showing people that it can be done
and being like, this is an astounding carrot, for instance.
Yeah. We've made an impact.
Does end up trickling down to our home.
So, Smorgasburg Toronto, first year.
I think this is a perfect glimpse into
what makes Toronto culinary scenes so astounding,
is you can get everything and everyone has a unique story
and everyone has a unique narrative
of how they got to be where they are.
It's a very beautifully curated experience.
Yeah, Toronto's in the summer,
best city in the world, for sure.
Matt and I are hungry, and we're on the hunt
for the festival's best plant-based grub.
Carlos, what's up, my man?
There's a dish, pulled jackfruit sandwich,
and I think this is it right here.
Whoa. Carlos, am I right?
Is this the jackfruit? That's the jackfruit, yeah.
Just percolating like that, too?
It looks like pulled beef.
Green jackfruit, so it's not sweet.
Gives it more of that pulled pork texture.
I spent three years trying to figure this out.
It's kind of just an ode to Scarborough
and all my favourite jerk chicken spots,
'cause I grew up in Scarborough.
What have you got in there spices-wise?
So, the dry marinade is allspice,
garlic powder, onion powder, little bit of brown sugar.
And then I do a wet marinade with Scotch bonnet,
green onion, scallion, garlic, ginger.
It's a crazy list.
Food looks delicious. Can't wait. Thanks, guys.
I can't wait. Thank you, man.
Cheers. Cheers, cheers.
Just look at this pulled jackfruit sandwich,
Scarborough dynamite.
(Happy grunt) Whoa.
The moisture is through the roof on this,
and the flavour is incredible.
He's done this to emulate a pulled jerk pork.
Yeah, his favourite, the best of the best.
This texture, this is wild.
Mm-hmm.
Alright, we are just getting started.
This festival's so packed, you can't take five steps
without someone trying to feed you.
Chef Matt, come try this with me.
So basically, we've got some coconut meat here,
and you're saying this is rice flour, kind of like a dosa?
Whoa. Mmm.
The spice of it is amazing. Yeah, it's amazing.
And so light. Unreal.
Perfect for a day like this.
I'm glad you like it.
What I love about having cameras here?
People just bring you food.
Where are we going?
No idea. Oh, right there. Meena's Kitchen.
That seems about right.
Meena? I'm Mena.
Classic Indian food?
We are doing potato patties,
aloo tikki, and we also have aloo paratha.
Dhokla as well? With chickpea flour and semolina flour.
Whoa.
What's the leaf? Curry leaf.
I've never had curry leaf.
And you've got some fried mustard seeds in there,
which pop, I love it.
Sometimes when you eat food it makes you want to dance.
You know, like, that's this.
You get like a little rhythm going from it.
How you doing? What have we got?
Black bean patty, and there's only five ingredients.
Okay, yeah-- yeah, that's good.
It looks like-- it looks like a burger, which is great.
Gluten-free as well. Vegan, no binders.
It's just simple ingredients.
Phenomenal, man.
Just as our tour was ending,
we spotted a colourful towering slaw,
and just had to make room for one more.
Tell us a little bit about what we've got here.
Dish is beautiful.
So this is our prosperity slaw.
It's based off of a Lunar New Year traditional dish.
The whole point is just supposed to
toss all of these ingredients together,
get it as high as you can, and you're
bringing prosperity into the New Year.
So this is a vegan version.
Beets, carrots, jicama, cucumber,
papaya, mango, cabbage,
and then we toss it with rose petals,
crispy onions, pickled ginger,
and crispy taro and rice noodles. Nice.
The dressing itself is a salted plum dressing,
so it's fresh plums and the umeboshi paste mixed together.
And what is umeboshi paste?
Oh, so that's the salted plum paste.
Okay, that's what you call it.
So it's really, really, like,
salty and savoury and strong.
And that's really what that drying process
brings out in the plums.
Okay, nice. Can't wait to try it.
Thank you very much.
♪
The crunch is what I love,
the texture of it, and that is something
that I find in a lot of plant-based vegan things,
the texture can only be very soft.
It's great to see people innovating with it.
It's amazing to see, like,
we get a little glimpse of each culture,
what they're offering, diversity, and the options.
It's overwhelming in the best way.
There's so much food options.
One row, there was Chinese,
Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese--
Japanese right beside it.
Yeah, that's just one row.
That's what makes Toronto special, you know? I totally agree.
Toronto's probably the most multicultural city in the world.
And you can taste that.
For a city once known as Hogtown,
Toronto's come a long way.
It's got an astounding culinary scene
that's increasingly adopting and serving vegan dishes.
♪
In the heart of Little Italy,
amidst the pepperoni pizzas and prosciutto,
is a hidden gem, a traditional Mexican restaurant.
Actually, a plant-based,
Michelin-recognised Mexican restaurant.
Let that settle in.
And the chef who's making noise
with the meticulously crafted vegan delights
he's brought from his hometown of Mexico City
is Chef Ivan Castro at his house: La Bartola.
Ivan: In Mexico City, I used to watch my mom
and my grandma cooking in the kitchen.
It was magical for me, and I fell in love with cooking.
It's my way to express love.
♪
Chef Ivan has invited me to join him in his kitchen
to make a traditional Oaxacan snack.
All right, Chef, so we're making tetelas today?
Yeah. Tetela is a traditional dish
from Oaxaca, basically a tortilla.
The filling is refried beans with poleo, and we serve that
with braised hibiscus flowers and a little bit of salsa verde.
Should we make some tetelas?
Ivan: Yeah, absolutely, yeah!
Okay, let's do it.
We're gonna grab a little bit of blue masa.
So we're gonna roll the masa.
We make everything from scratch here, so we make the tortillas.
We make our tamales.
Mena: You use purple, black corn and then the red?
Ivan: We have blue, we have pink.
We have even purple, yellow, white corn, different colours.
Put in the centre of our press tortilla.
Okay.
Ivan: After that, another small piece of masa.
So you're going smaller and smaller, basically.
Smaller yeah, and you can make, like,
different shapes, different colours.
This is one of our signature dishes.
Mena: Oh, and you're going one more.
Ivan: That's it. And then we're gonna flip it.
Then we're gonna put our...
Refried beans. Beautiful.
Ivan: So we are gonna fold this side first,
then the other one.
That's our tetela. We're gonna put it here.
Mena: Very nice. So chef, next we're gonna put
our braised hibiscus on and heat it up?
This is a mix of hibiscus flowers, shiitake mushrooms,
and caramelized onions. So, this is ready to go.
All right!
Ivan: Then a little bit of salsa here, jalapeno,
onions, garlic, salt, jalapeno confit salsa.
And when you say confit, is it because
you deep-fry the jalapenos before you make it?
Yes. Yeah.
Wow. So try that.
Mm!
My mom would make falafel. It's a typical Egyptian dish.
Ivan: Mm-hmm.
And while she had the oil in there and she was deep-frying
falafel, she would also deep-fry jalapenos.
This tastes exactly like that. That's, that's killer.
I think Mexico's a lot like Egypt.
People eat with their hands, right?
Ivan: Yeah.
Mena: We put a little bit of that jalapeno...
Ivan: Salsa on top.
Salsa, oh yeah, and we've got the refried beans in there.
Beautiful fresh tortillas.
Mm. Mm!
Ivan: Pretty good, right?
Wow. I could, I could eat 25 of these. Home run.
And you need to try our signature taco,
which is the braised hibiscus taco,
and it comes with salsa macha,
which is like a crunchy peanut butter with a kick.
Oh, whoa!
That is gonna be something. You need to try it.
Really, wow.
First I'm gonna take another bite.
Mm. Mm.
Home run, Chef.
Thank you.
Mena: Ivan's place has been open to the public
for over two years now, growing out of a series
of 10-person private dinners he hosted
with his partner Pedro in their condo.
Those homemade dinners were so popular, the demand
evolved into a full-fledged restaurant: La Bartola.
Right, wow.
Ivan: Hello.
So here we have the black aguachile.
It is similar to ceviche.
On this side we have hearts of palm
wrapped with cucumber ribbons, and then on top
red pickled onions with a little bit of habanero.
Kinda a bit spicy but not super-spicy.
Then on this side, king oyster mushrooms
and plum with a little bit of black salt.
Mena: Wow. Beautiful, And so, ceviche,
typically raw ingredients just cured with acid?
So, similar idea here, right, everything is raw, pretty much?
Yeah, everything is raw.
All right. Well, cheers. Cheers.
Ivan: Cheers.
Mena: Now let's dig in.
(Crunching)
Really, really well-balanced
and delicious way to start a meal.
Ivan: Thank you.
Toronto's the perfect city for La Bartola, I feel like,
because it welcomes new ideas, and it welcomes new cultures.
So not only do you have a Mexican restaurant,
but you also have a plant-based restaurant.
Yeah. Everything is plant-based.
Everything is vegan, yeah.
And so these are...
Heirloom cherry tomatoes.
We serve it with guava and mezcal vinaigrette.
Mena: Tomatoes and cantaloupes.
Ivan: Yeah.
Mena: They feel soft, so have they absorbed the syrup?
Ivan: Yeah. The syrup is a mix of star anise, allspice,
a bit of piloncillo, which is like Mexican raw sugar,
cinnamon, a little bit of salt.
Mm!
Christmassy flavour, like holidays.
Pumpkin spice in a little cantaloupe.
Ah, it's amazing.
I feel very lucky to do this here in the city which I love,
and I'm very grateful with Canada and with Toronto
to giving me this opportunity.
Mena: Chef, what do we have here?
Ivan: This is one of our signature tacos,
braised hibiscus taco with caramelized onions
and shiitake mushrooms, and on top there's salsa macha.
I like to describe it as crunchy peanut butter with a kick.
It's not super-spicy. It's very flavourful.
It's sweet. It's crunchy, nutty at the same time.
It's really, really good.
This is one of my favourite tacos.
The other hibiscus would almost overpower the peanuts,
where here the peanuts are the perfect complement to this.
Ivan: Yeah.
Really kinda adds a pop of nuttiness. Beautiful.
This is like the first dish made for La Bartola,
for the restaurant, because it was my dream.
So to finally see my dream, it is amazing.
Well, congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chef.
Ivan's journey is exactly what makes Toronto special,
a welcoming metropolis that attracts diverse individuals
searching for purpose, and Ivan's purpose is crystal-clear:
to make me tetelas.
When I'm back in TO, there's spots I gotta hit
to satisfy my sweet tooth,
and joining me, my man Tesher.
Saskatchewan-born, Toronto-living,
Tesher's single Jalebi Baby
exploded to the tune of half a billion views on YouTube.
♪ Baby let me see it ♪
♪ Jalebi baby ♪
♪ I just wanna eat it ♪
With a TikTok dance craze pushing another billion streams,
he's a recording star on the rise, and he has no idea,
but he's in for a sweet surprise: Honey's.
This is Toronto's only premium,
100% plant-based ice cream shop.
Ashley Wittig's the owner and super-genius behind Honey's,
named after her puppy.
She's a prominent vegan baker
who spent the last five years reinventing ice cream.
Ashley, what's going on?
Hi! Welcome to Honey's.
We make premium plant-based ice cream.
We blend all the cashews in-house.
We make everything in-house. Just a very tasty place to be.
Tesh, have you had vegan ice cream before?
'Cause you're not vegan, so.
No, I have never had vegan ice cream.
No pressure, Ash.
(Laughs)
Okay. All right. What are you gonna start with?
I feel like I have to start with birthday cake.
Wow. That is really good.
You nailed it! You nailed it.
That's amazing. My god.
That's a birthday cake, yeah.
My god. I can't even tell the difference between this and,
like, non-vegan ice cream.
We're getting good.
And it's becoming so much more accessible now, too, yeah.
High five, yes.
We're taking over, man!
Is this like a conversion?
Is this like an intervention?
This is an intervention.
We actually brought you here for...
A few of my friends reached out and said we've
got to do something about this.
Exactly.
Next, Ashley, we're making a surprise flavour.
Making ice cream is the best part, yeah.
So I'm gonna start by showing you guys how we make
the base vegan.
First thing we're gonna start with, most important thing
about ice cream, is the sugar.
So you're gonna grab that sugar.
Put this whole thing in here?
Yeah. Dump it in.
Alright.
Oh yeah.
Ashley: Next up, we'll add a little bit of water.
And let's grab that sugar syrup.
All of it in?
Ashley: Yup.
Alright, here we go.
Ashley: So we give this a stir, kind of
marry it together.
Nice.
And then we stick it on our stovetop.
Okay!
I would've never believed that this is how
you make ice cream.
Mena: Next up, we melt the fat, boiling that beautiful
coconut oil and cacao butter smooth.
Ashley cruises through the process, but it took a lot
of hard work to make it look this easy.
So I probably tested this maybe 1000 times.
Tesher: 1000?
Ashley: Every single day for over a year.
Serious?
I would make this base, what we're making today, and I
would pop it out of the freezer the next day,
close my eyes, have a taste.
And then from there I would make the recipe for that day
to kind of like push it along.
So it was very time consuming.
Wow, I thought making a cookbook was hard.
This sounds tedious.
Ashley: It's pretty tedious.
So next up we're gonna put our creams into our big bucket.
So you're basically just combining the sugar and fat.
Yeah.
And then we use the blender to emulsify it all together.
Oh yeah, I see we've got some heavy power tools here,
alright?
You don't mess with Ashley when you come into the shop.
(Chuckling)
Let's go! Let's get it!
(Whirring)
Mena: So it's time for the surprise!
We've got a surprise for you.
Yeah, we've got a little bit of a surprise.
Oh, geez! Oh man.
Ashley: Ta-da!
We've making a jalebi flavoured ice cream today.
You'd think I'd have had Jalebi ice cream.
I have not had jalebi ice cream.
Mena: Jalebi's a traditional South Asian dessert, like
a neon funnel cake dipped in syrup, a treat Tesher grew up
eating at home and the inspiration for his hit song!
Oh yeah.
Ashley: It's good, hey?
You know what, I'll tell you, whoever your jalebi guy is,
send me his number because he's doing a great job.
They get the Tesher stamp of approval.
They do get the Tesher stamp of approval.
Mena: By now, the creamy base is ready for that
sweet jalebi, baby...
Mena: When's enough, like...
Ashley: All of it.
All of it. Put it all in.
I think this just brought us closer together, Tesh.
Oh, it absolutely did.
Grab your spatula and then have at it.
Tesher: Okay.
When I made the song, I didn't think I'd be making
jalebi ice cream.
Mena: Right.
This has to be my favourite jalebi-related thing that
I've done so far.
Yes!
That makes me happy, man.
Tesher special, right here.
Jalebi baby.
♪
I like it.
I think it's a home run.
I like it.
Wow.
And the fact that it's vegan.
I just can't get over that too.
I'm just in awe that it's vegan.
Like, that's just the thing that I cannot get over.
Right?
Toronto's, like, an incredible city obviously
for music artists.
Artists overall, but music artists.
I mean, we got you, we got Drake, we got Bieber,
Shawn Mendes.
We've got all these incredible music...
Yeah.
What about Toronto allows Canadian artists in the music
scene specifically?
Because there's something that's happened in the past
ten years where it's just-- Toronto's been a hot spot.
Man, I think it's really the ethnic diversity.
I remember listening to like some Weeknd songs.
And some of the riffs and notes that he would hit,
I was like...
This kinda sounds a little Indian.
When you're surrounded by all those cultures,
you find ways to...
They subconsciously just melt into what you do, and I think
you're better for it.
And you're also more relatable too.
Yeah, it finds its way in music, obviously, like we
talked about.
In food, of course.
Like, I think we have one of the best food cities
in the world.
The diversity here and how authentic it is.
You know what I always thought was really interesting about
Toronto was that Indian food in 'Sauga, Scarborough,
Brampton, even in Toronto that will-- like, it's just as
good as you get in India.
Yeah, yeah.
Listen, if you can find a vegan chilli chicken,
I will convert.
I will just become a full time vegan.
I'm on it, man.
That's the only thing holding me back is the Hakka.
Mena: Tesher, once we figure out the Hakka,
we got you, bro.
(Train whoosh)
Now, I know the word vegan has historically rubbed some
people the wrong way, but in the last decade that
stigma's fading.
I've had a lot of conversations about food
since I went plant-based.
We may all have different POVs but ideally we have
a dialogue, and we try to learn from each other.
So I wanted to make this next stop for that very reason;
to extend an olive branch to someone with a different
point of view.
Antler, localvore resto run by chef Michael Hunter.
Chef Michael normally features wild game on his menu;
anything from duck to deer to wild-boar.
The hunter Chef is also huge into foraging, crawling
through the woods looking for mushrooms and berries.
For him, the forest is his pantry.
But in 2018, Antler was the site of an explosive dust-up
between animal-activists and the meat-forward restaurateur.
It started over foie gras and ended in a counter-protest
where Chef carved a deer leg in the window.
It was international headline material, but it wasn't a
great moment for the dialogue.
Now, I'm not the type of vegan who beefs with meat eaters.
A big part of my journey is listening to opposing views,
so I reached out to the Chef and said, real talk.
Let's do this.
And he kindly offered to cook me a vegan meal,
at his house, Antler.
Cheers, chef.
All great conversations need to start with a drink, Chef.
Thank you for having me.
So I can't wait to dig into this.
What do we have here?
Michael: This is a vegan corn and chantrelle risotto.
Arborio rice, creamed corn in there, whole corn that I've
sautéed, shallot, garlic.
Mena: The risotto's incredibly creamy.
Obviously, the mushrooms are delicious.
And the colour is beautiful too.
Michael: And the salad, it's a panzanella salad.
There's heirloom tomatoes that we've charred
on a charcoal grill.
Heirloom cherry tomatoes, some shaved onion in, like,
a gazpacho vinaigrette.
Focaccia croutons in there that are baked with
an olive oil.
That focaccia bread is just absorbing that gazpacho,
and the flavour in there, oh my gosh.
So you're probably thinking what's a vegan show doing
in my restaurant?
(Laughing)
But honestly, I grew up eating a ton of meat.
I great up Egyptian, so I've eaten every part of an
animal you can think of.
From cow hooves to stomach lining, the brain.
All the fun stuff!
Yeah, I've eaten it all.
I want people to eat more plant-based, there's no doubt
about it.
And I truly believe that to really make a difference
we have to understand each other's points of view, and
I think we just have to vow to eat more plants, which you do,
obviously.
You forage in the forest, you know.
You're using ingredients that are local, you know,
from the area.
As a chef and a hunter, you know, I think myself and a lot
of vegans have a lot in common that, you know, not a lot of
people necessarily know.
How animals are treated and how they live in the wild is
really important to me.
As a hunter, I prefer rifle hunting or shotgun hunting.
For the most part it's instant.
You know, to me that-- that's really important.
Unlike factory farming, which we all know is torturous and
just brutal and disgusting...
Michael: They're standing in line, waiting to be killed.
That is what really drives me to hunt.
You know, and to feed my family with wild, natural,
organic, you know, meat and fish.
The way I choose to live and eat is very important to me,
and with Antler I wanted to share that with our customers.
You know, I have a lot of respect for everyone's diet,
and whether you're, you know, vegan, vegetarian, halal,
kosher, whatever it is, you're welcome in our home.
We're a very small place.
I like to think that we're all like family, and you know,
people are guests in our home.
And you know, all are welcome.
You put a lot of thought into how you eat,
and I think that's important.
I think that's kind of the most important thing nowadays,
is researching where your food comes from, and if you're
putting thought into it, and making that choice, then
I have to respect that, you know?
Likewise.
Yeah, I can't not respect that.
You go out and you see where your food is coming from.
Yeah.
Unlike a lot of people, that, you know, end up going to
a fast food establishment, they're having a burger, they
don't really ever think about what that burger is or where
it comes from or how it's processed or any of that.
At the grocery store, how many people's hands it's actually
been through before it goes into your body is shocking.
When did this philosophy start for you?
I grew up on a horse farm, so, you know, being in nature and
respecting nature was a big part of my life.
The documentary Food Inc. had a really big impact on me.
So the look into the factory farm was pretty shocking
to me.
So like actually seeing it for the first time.
What Evolving Vegan is all about is to understand what
your food is coming from, what you're consuming.
And you know, that everything you put into your body has an
impact, whether it's on the animals, the environment,
your health.
And as long as you understand those three things, then you
can make whatever choice you want, man.
Because it's your body, it's your life.
Like, who am I to tell you how to eat?
And who are you to tell me how to eat, and what to
put into my body?
I don't think the whole world is gonna become vegan.
I don't think we're gonna stop eating animals.
But I think there's a lot of common ground of
a conversation of how we can change some of the regulations
and maybe make it better for the animals.
I try and tell my kids that, you know,
meat doesn't come from the grocery store
in a little pretty Styrofoam package.
And you know, I think that if, you know, people eat meat,
they should slaughter a chicken once in their life
because I think if people actually saw
what they're eating and how it's being processed,
I think they wouldn't eat as much, and I think
they would really value it and respect it a lot more.
I think there's a huge disconnect that, you know,
that was an animal that was alive.
And, you know, if they actually had to kill
that animal themselves, I don't think
they'd be throwing meat in the garbage.
Mena: You sounded like a vegan there for a second.
(Chuckling)
Because a lot of vegans have said that to me before, that
you know, when we're having this discussion, that they're
okay with people eating meat, as long as they slaughter
it themselves, because then they are a part of, you know,
taking that animal's life away, and you know, butchering
it and processing it.
Yeah.
So what you just said actually has been said to me by a lot
of vegans, so that's very interesting.
Dialogue is important, right?
And it's not just about plant-based or not
plant-based, it comes down to politics, whether you're
arguing with your wife or your husband or your partner.
When we don't take the time to try and understand where each
other are coming from, then we end up pushing each other away
even further.
I can't control what you believe or don't believe.
Yeah, you can inspire someone.
Yeah, I can try to inspire you, but that's it.
For me, a win is if people just, you know, put a little
more thought in their food.
And maybe research what they're eating.
You know, for me, that's a win.
Thank you for the food.
It's truly delicious, and I love that it's seasonal,
I love that it's local.
And it was just a great meal, great conversation.
Well, thank you, it's been a pleasure having you, and
a really fun conversation.
Thanks, chef, thank you.
Thank you, Chef, for the food, the dialogue and the common
ground.
Where we differ on eating meat, we agreed on one thing:
be thoughtful about your food.
(Distant siren)
What we eat and where it comes from matters!
Living in a metropolis with millions of people, there can
be a disconnect between where your food is sourced and what
you're consuming.
If anyone is pressing to re-connect rural and urban,
the farm and city, the land and its roots, it's Cheyenne
Sundance, and her eponymous urban farm: Sundance Harvest.
The values of eating vegan and eating local aren't
necessarily the same thing, but they're often aligned;
better for the environment and lower carbon footprint.
And come on, local's fresher, and more delicious!
At only 25, Cheyenne has Toronto and the entire
country talking.
She's a food justice advocate, a leader, a teacher, an
inspiration in the food sovereignty movement,
and chiefly, a farmer.
(Soft music)
Cheyenne, Maya, what's going on?
Hey!
Cheyenne, harvesting radish, very nice.
I saw the kale back there, the tomatoes there.
We've got some tomatoes, we've got lots of greens happening
because we're coming into fall.
So the cooler time of the year, so we need to take
the hot crops out and bring the cool crops in.
But I'm gonna show you around this way so you can
see the beans and you can see the sunflowers,
and the colours.
I love it, let's do it.
Let's go.
Cheyenne started this ground-breaking year-round
urban farm just north of the city to provide organic,
healthy food to her local community.
You've had this farm now for about three years?
Cheyenne: Yeah, so I started with half of my first
greenhouse, and then every year kind of just expanded.
So 1.5 acres.
♪
In retrospect, wearing white shoes was not the move.
It was not the move today.
Cheyenne: We have some sunflowers.
It's really important for us to plant some flowers,
especially for our beehives, since they need pollen.
Yeah, yeah.
And we've got lots of carrots that are growing for fall,
because they kind of blend well
with that seasonal flavour,
and then a diversified array of cut flowers
because we sell them at the farmer's market.
Something I wanted to actually show you...
Yeah.
...is that we have sunchokes.
And it grows through the winter,
and it tastes like a potato.
Potato, right.
Sunchokes, kind of like artichokes, right?
They're kind of in the middle between artichokes
and potatoes. And they're small, right?
They're small, so let me show you.
I love artichokes-- oh!
So they grow exactly like a potato.
It's a beautiful crop, perennial, and it's native to
this climate.
Mena: You're only 25.
Yeah, I'm 25.
Mena: So tell me about how'd you get this property?
It's beautiful.
So I have a long-term lease, which is great.
For a lot of my friends, and myself, I can't afford to buy
land in South-western Ontario.
So doing things like community land trusts, or cooperative
land models, to actually like make it more affordable for
young people to farm.
This is a Black and Indigenous-run farm.
And it's really important to, you know, have space and
agriculture where historically we haven't been included.
And I'm actually the president
of the National Farmers Union BIPOC Caucus.
So It's kind of like within my duties
to like make space for community.
Because the more farmers we have in general,
no matter the race, the better.
Having spaces like this is important because we get to
show youth of all ages, really that you can farm, and it can
be a living.
(Upbeat instrumental music)
Mena: Sundance Harvest is also home to dozens of beehives and
a healthy population of pollinators making sweet,
sweet honey.
Which in the vegan world, is actually a hot-button,
controversial topic.
Honey is technically an animal product.
Or by-product, depending on how you look at it.
The onsite beekeeper Selina Rachel Mendez dedicates her
time to keeping these hives healthy and sustainable.
Selina!
Mena!
How are you?
What's going on, Selina and Mena!
Yes!
Mena: I really wanted to do this with you because honey
can be very controversial of course, right?
For vegans.
Some vegans consider honey not vegan.
Some do.
Honeybees tend to make a surplus of honey.
But of course, it's nourishment for the hive.
So they continue to eat it throughout the winter and
through the months where there aren't any-- there isn't
any available nectar.
So unlike dairy farming, for example, like, you're not
forcing the bees to be here.
You're not feeding them excess, right?
Exactly.
They're in their natural state.
Right.
So they would hive up and colonize anyway.
So I'm just providing the space for them to be.
There are a lot of commercial beekeepers who don't
necessarily use ethical practices and I wanted to do
something a little different.
Yeah, no, I'm glad we're having this conversation,
because knowing that about commercial honey and what
the differences are, I mean, that's what it's all about.
Part of the reason that I started beekeeping was because
I wanted to know more about where my food came from.
I went through this whole process and culturally,
honey's huge for me.
There aren't a lot of Black beekeepers.
I started looking into bees and their societies and
I fell in love with it.
(Upbeat instrumental music)
Mena: I've always wanted to see how this works.
Selina: I try my best to only do my beekeeping in a place
that I find is sustainable.
So this is an organic farm.
In this colony, we just have honeybees.
Honeybees are hyper social, which is what we call them.
And so they can only operate in a large colony like this.
So you give them a little bit of smoke.
Sorry.
Are you smoking me or the bees, come on, Selina!
Come on!
I heard a rumour when I was a kid that honey is like
bees' spit?
So they take nectar and to take the water out, they put
it between each other's mouths.
Mena: So they're making out?
These bees are getting busy!
(Chuckling)
Whoa!
Selina: Okay, so this is a frame of capped honey.
This is how we know it's been stored and it's ready
to harvest.
I don't take any nectar, I don't force anything before
it's ready.
But this capped honey means, like, we're putting this to
the side.
It's not necessary for right now.
Okay, interesting.
Do you want to hold this?
Yeah, I'd love to.
It's heavier than it looks.
Oh wow, yes.
It's so dense with honey that that makes sense.
Selina: Right.
♪
(Light buzzing)
The thing I find most extraordinary about this,
obviously we've only spent
a very short amount of time here.
But the honey you're buying, that people are buying at
home, it can differ so greatly from how it's being colonized,
harvested, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And it really has to do with the beekeeper and, you know,
the brand per se.
Right.
And so it's important I think for people to really realize
that the differences are so small but they have such
a vast impact.
And if they do decide to eat honey, just be cognisant of
where they're getting it from.
Exactly.
Thank you so much.
This has been incredible.
Let's get out of here before I get stung, okay?
(Chuckling)
Selina's clearly weighed the pros and cons of keeping bees,
and that thoughtfulness is all you can really ask of anyone
who decides to grow their own food.
♪
(Upbeat instrumental music)
No matter how short my visit to Toronto, there's no way
I'm leaving without some of my Mom's home cooking.
And even though my family's lived here for decades now,
her traditional Egyptian dishes keep us connected
to our roots.
Everyone is welcome at our table.
So welcome...
Toronto is my house, but this is my home.
(Light music)
Look at these beautiful ladies in the kitchen here.
Oh hello!
Hi Mena!
How are you, buddy, how's it going?
Hi Mena!
Hi.
So I brought you some eggplant for your mahshi.
Oh, so nice.
You love the small ones.
I love them.
Where'd you find them?
The Indian market, the Indian market.
And this is some honey.
Oh, I need this.
Yeah?
We went to this amazing beekeeping farm.
When I come home, I feel comfort.
And I really do think the comfort of my family home
is connected to the food I grew up with, the smells,
the action, the constant swirl of watching my Mom cook
for our big family.
How many times have we cooked falafel?
Countless.
Every Sunday for 25 years.
While it might've been tough for my Mom to wrap her head
around me going plant-based, Egyptian food is incredibly
vegan friendly: it's full of staples like Baba Ganoush,
and Egyptian-style falafel.
And nobody does it better than her.
The falafel, you press it down.
It's not like a ball.
Is that how they do it in Egypt?
Yeah.
Lebanese way is just the dough with the chickpeas only.
But in Egypt we do with-- Fava beans.
But you always make it with fava beans and chickpeas,
the two...
Yes.
Look at that, right here.
Egyptian falafel.
♪
We're excited for falafel.
Mena: Sharing food at the Massoud home is bigger than
just putting something in your belly.
It's about tradition, it's culture, it's hospitality.
And like everyone, everywhere, sharing food is about making
memories, laughing, and sometimes welcoming strangers.
Or film crews.
I mean, the boys are hungry.
Get in here!
(Chuckling)
♪
Mena: Good?
This is classic Egyptians here,
when everybody fights over the cleaning.
That's the thing.
Everybody's just going in for it.
Well, I'm gonna let them fight it out
because I have important business to do, okay?
I have a very important job to do.
♪
So...
Mom, who is the best helper in the kitchen?
Me!
None of us!
No, it was me!
(Talking over each other)
Getting together was so important for us, right?
It was a big part of what we did and sharing things,
and just bonding over food.
Food was a time where we all kind of caught up.
Get together.
Yeah.
Mena: One of the many things I really appreciate about my
Mom, about my family, is that after the tears, there was
acceptance. And I love that.
Our final dish is mahshi.
It's the Egyptian version of the common cabbage roll but it
uses many other vegetables, like grape leaves, my
favourite, and bell peppers with the same rice mix.
It's delicious.
So mahshi is one of those dishes that, you know, you
like to do as a family, because everyone can chip
in, you know?
And it's not that hard.
Like, you fill these peppers.
Mom bosses you around a little bit.
It's all good.
Usually the grape leaf, you do it with the ground meat.
But because Mena's vegan, we do it with the rice.
As we put the finishing touches on the mahshi,
the table is set with all the foods I grew up eating. Like
Koshari-an Egyptian staple of lentils, noodles and rice
piled high and topped with spicy tomato sauce.
Baba ganoush, pita, falafel, fried onions,
plus all the smell, the chaotic chatter
and the laughter I remember.
(Laughter)
All the things that make a house a home.
Before I say goodbye to my hometown,
I meeting up with some of my closest friends
to reconnect and treat them to a five-course
fine dining experience at Avelo.
Their ever-changing tasting menu is all plant-based.
And while not everyone here is vegan,
we're all down for a unique experience.
Avelo's menu delivers innovative takes on high-end classics
like this plant-based tartare.
Roasted watermelon marinated in Kampuchea,
topped with an endive and parsley brunoise.
I have never had a fine dining vegan experience before.
So, this is my first one.
The palates are unique.
It's not trying to mimic meat, really.
It just tastes something original.
Mena: And this decadent buckwheat gnocchi
tossed in a fermented porcini sauce
with sautéed chanterelles.
You can taste the vegetables.
I think that my main complaint of most vegan places
is that it's deep-fried or doused in so much sauce
that you can't actually taste the veggies.
But you could really taste how fresh all these veggies were.
Mena: Finally, this incredible pina colada tart
with a pineapple upside down cake,
fresh coconut mousse and the pineapple purée.
Oh, my gosh.
That doesn't taste vegan, right?
No, it doesn't.
This is amazing.
There's no way this is vegan.
Come on!
(Laughter)
Mena: Even a few years ago,
I find it nearly impossible to take my friends out
for a full-on vegan haute cuisine.
But tastes are changing, options expanding
and I love seeing it evolve.
As me and the crew grab a game of pickup
before our next adventure,
I have to reflect on what a great food town
Toronto's become.
Diverse, plant forward,
echoing its multicultural base.
For me, it'll always be the city where I grew up,
where I began my acting career,
where my mom taught me to cook.
And it's the city where I evolved vegan.
And every time I come back,
I witness the city growing and changing
and it reminds me how we can all evolve.
Should we be adventurous?
I think we should because this is what this is all about.
We challenged four people to evolve their eats
and try going plant-based for one week.
This week, try one of your family's favourite meals
plant-based and some recipes that I'm sure you're gonna love.
I'm really excited about this.
The best kind of surprise.
Are you excited?
Uh-huh.
Going plant-based doesn't mean
you need to be all in or nothing at all.
Health is wealth,
so I'm looking forward to showing my children
that healthy food can be fun and good.
It's family fare cooking.
It can be about making small changes
that work with your lifestyle.
Moment of truth coming up.
That was the most surprising.
That's a really good on-the-go type of food
that they like, so I'm glad.
Lasagna!
They were so delicious that they even had them later for dinner.
It's easier than I thought it would be.
That's amazing!
See how they did at ctv.ca/shows/evolving-vegan.
♪
(Clicking)
(Soft music)