Our cookbook of the week is Diala’s Kitchen by Diala Canelo. To try a recipe from the book, check out: Mashed plantains with fried eggs , blackened fish over yuca fries and coconut flan .
A riot of flavour, aroma, colour and textures, travel can open up our palates in enduring ways. Markets, street-food stalls and bakeries offer a window into another way of life — one that can shape not only how we cook, but how we live.
Many of the most vivid recollections mark a turning point with an ingredient, technique or taste. Places that spoke to us and food we had little concept of before experiencing them in situ . Reflecting on this ever-expanding education is a joy in and of itself.
Reading Diala’s Kitchen by Toronto-based writer, photographer and pastry chef Diala Canelo , I couldn’t help but let my own memories of visiting great food cities seep in. Tied to travel but rooted in a sense of home, Canelo recounts recipes and stories from the cities around the world she’s most drawn to.
“As soon as I get to a place I need to go to a market and see what it’s all about. And I can spend hours there. That’s my personal museum,” says Canelo, laughing. “I’m just looking forward to having those experiences again.”
During her more than 15-year-long career as a flight attendant (she was laid off due to COVID-19), travel has been more than a function of her job. As valuable as the ingredients she would tuck into her suitcase to bring home, Canelo says, was the inspiration she came away with.
“Travel has always influenced the way I see food,” she adds. “And then when I started travelling all over the world as a flight attendant, it became more heightened.”
Canelo opens Diala’s Kitchen with a snapshot of her hometown, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, followed by essays on Mexico City — where she lived for three years while completing her pastry training at Le Cordon Bleu — Melbourne, Florence, Barcelona, Toronto and San Francisco.
The simplicity of Dominican cuisine, Canelo writes, “truly defines ‘food for the soul’” — and she extends this elemental approach throughout the book. Recipes like mangú de plátanos (mashed plantains with fried eggs), asopao de camarones (shrimp and rice stew), blackened fish with yuca fries, pumpkin soup topped with slices of avocado and fresh cilantro, and coconut flan transport her back to her island and its diverse food culture.
“Dominican was colonized by the Spanish in 1492, and we have an African diaspora. There are so many influences when it comes to Dominican food,” says Canelo. “We’ve always struggled with a term that is being used a lot right now — with colourism — and a lot of people not fully accepting that our country was built by over 40,000 Africans who were brought into the country. That is reflected in our food. And I’ve been embracing it since the time I was born, because I was born into a family … (of) activists. The way I express my love and my support is through food, so those recipes needed to be in the book for sure.”
Montreal, her first Canadian home, was where Canelo’s love of cooking and baking began. When she arrived to study nutrition and dietetics at McGill University, she recalls, her repertoire consisted largely of lasagna. Inspired by the city’s multiculturalism, Canelo began spending her weekends at Atwater Market, experimenting with ingredients and collecting cookbooks that now number well over 600.
“It was an explosion to my senses of all the vibrancy in the markets. Montreal has always been multicultural but in the mid-90s I think it was a special time. One day I would have Vietnamese food, another day I would have Italian, the next day I would have Ethiopian,” says Canelo. “That’s really where it all began for me. Without Montreal I don’t think I would be here in terms of food.”
After starting her cookbook collection upon moving to Canada, having now written her own is especially meaningful for Canelo. A reflection of how she eats at home in Toronto, she emphasizes simplicity in her vegetarian and pescatarian recipes, which evoke places near and far.
In highlighting what she’s gained from travel, she hopes to encourage readers to look outside their own culinary customs. “Even though we can’t travel right now,” says Canelo, “we can travel while we’re in our kitchens with this food.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
