Pioneering Tastes
Chef Lorna Murdoch left River Heights to experience the culinary world. In 2003 she returned to her roots, adding a traditional touch to the leading-edge food at Fusion Grill.
By Brad Hughes
A century ago a wave of starving Ukrainian peasants arrived on the prairies lured by the offer of free land. They were chasing a rumour heard in the old country: in Manitoba wild strawberries were so plentiful that people left red footprints wherever they walked. Although this proved to be a streets-of-gold claim, these pioneer immigrants were overjoyed when they discovered the diversity of summer berries in the region: wild black currants, chokecherries, high and low bush cranberries, gooseberries, pincherries, raspberries, saskatoons and strawberries. During the summer they picked everything they could.
What they didn’t consume fresh, they froze or canned for winter use.
Ripe prairie berries are still a symbol of summer, as munificent today as they were then. Their bold, exciting taste represents the dynamic regional flavour that inspires city-born, pioneer-spirited Chef Lorna Murdoch of Winnipeg’s highly-acclaimed Fusion Grill.
Chef Lorna runs the kitchen at this undisputed leader in regional cuisine. It’s a high pressure gig, during which she is on stage every night with only her sous and prep chefs helping as she cooks for some of Winnipeg’s most discerning diners. The food is modern; the atmosphere “hip and fun” as noted by Frommers. But the philosophy behind every dish from the kitchen is the same as the first pioneers: source locally, use everything and don’t forget to put up supplies for the winter.
Although she doesn’t hail from pioneer stock and she’s never lived on a farm, Chef Lorna would do your baba proud. She buys half a cow at a time, directly from the producer, and uses every bit of it. There’s a whole freezer downstairs just for the bones; kept to make sauces and stocks, which are put on to simmer overnight after the dinner rush. She bought another freezer to fill with berries each summer so that she can offer local product to her customers all winter. When asked why, she answers, “It just makes sense. They taste better and it’s way better for the environment than driving trucks full of berries from California to Manitoba all winter.”
Together with Fusion’s effusive owner Scot McTaggart, Chef Lorna seeks out low-impact producers who practice sustainable agriculture. During our Ciao! photo session the restaurant’s aluminum screen door continuously swung open with a steady procession of farmers, ranchers, fishermen and artisanal producers. These are people like the “grass-fed beef guy”, Glen Nicholl of Country Quarters in the Interlake. Nicholl grazes his animals in a natural grasslands system of perennial forage. His 100% grass-fed beef has a meatiness that McTaggart describes as “robust and intense”. This is beef the way it used to taste a century ago when all food was organic, chemical-free, non-GMO and for the most part produced locally.
Pioneer food was not gourmet cuisine by any means but, fresh from the field, it had big, bold flavour. Modern food production is all about standardization – for easier shipping, larger volumes, longer shelf-life and better appearance. Taste is barely a consideration now. This gives chefs like Lorna Murdoch an incredible edge. They can put more flavour in their food just by sourcing fresh, local product. The results speak for themselves. Chef Lorna was recently chosen to attend a Taste of Canada showcase in New York City’s Rainbow Room, which she describes her approach as, “I like to take ingredients that are local and familiar and do something exciting with them.” It’s an attitude that was forged in the creative cauldron of the Stratford Chefs School, the only culinary institute in the country operated by working restaurant professionals. An urban River Heights kid, Lorna Murdoch started on the traditional culinary career path – Red River College in 1991 followed by stints in several Winnipeg kitchens. Then in 1996 she joined the inaugural Fusion Grill team and spent two years working with founding Chef Geoff Kitt. It was at his urging that she enrolled in the Stratford program.
Chefs school was an exciting time for the nascent chef, with appearances by top guest chef instructors from all over the world. She even met her husband Stephen there, a fellow Stratford grad.
During this period Chef Lorna developed her pioneering style. “The commitment to quality local ingredients really made sense to me,” she says, “especially organic food.” The formal training was followed by a few intense years in the big city cooking crucibles of Toronto and Vancouver. “Each move,” she says, “was about going to a better restaurant, even if it meant taking a lesser role in the kitchen.”
The drudgery of long commute times and expensive rental housing, coupled with the pull of family ties, brought the young couple to Winnipeg in early 2003. That fall Chef Lorna took the helm at Fusion Grill, with Stephen working the kitchen for the lunch trade. Like real pioneers they bought a house and began to put down roots.
The restaurant had been garnering national acclaim for its innovative regional cooking and Chef Lorna’s challenge was to keep that momentum going. She did it by focusing on the ingredients. Her menu features more organic products, exciting new vegetarian options and local foods that are diligently prepared and creatively presented. The first pioneers could not have done it any better. Yet Chef Lorna has really just begun. Her future is as bright as fresh berries on a plate.
