Devour! cooks up the world’s biggest food filmfest
Devour! The Food Film Fest wrapped up Sunday afternoon with the Golden Tine Awards Brunch presenting fork-like statues for best films at the five-day festival in Wolfville.
Driving down Main Street, it’s not hard to figure out who the biggest star was at the festival: store signage and billboards welcomed Anthony Bourdain, chef-turned-writer and host of CNN’s Parts Unknown.
Bourdain inaugurated the festival on Wednesday, Nov. 12 with an opening gala featuring 12 local chefs pulling out all the stops to impress the famed rebel chef. Plates of sea urchin with citrus emulsion and confit rabbit floated around the room to hungry guests.
The first film of the annual event was Eat Drink Man Woman. The 1993 Ang Lee film was introduced by the ever-calm, cool and collected Bourdain. A favourite film of his, Bourdain raved about knife skills and drool-worthy Chinese cooking scenes to an eager audience.
“I was totally blown away at how charming, genuine and articulate he was,” says Kelly Neil, a local food photographer who attended the screening. Bourdain spent 45 minutes graciously answering audience questions, covering issues from his digestive tract to travelling the world for his TV show.
Chefs, food lovers and film aficionados descended onto the tiny university town to celebrate all that is food and wine. With over 50 films shown, Devour! is the biggest food film festival in the world. Workshops, food truck rallies and chef collaborations were just some events cooked up in the area during the festival.
“Crumbs are a huge part of any realistic food scene,” says food stylist Adam Pearson at his workshop, underlining the importance of realism and texture. He and partner Matt Armendariz traveled from Los Angeles to host the workshop, eager to share their secrets.
“He eats everything we shoot,” says Pearson affectionately of his photographer partner.
Top Chef Canada alumnus Jesse Vergen of Saint John Ale House hosted ‘Cooking with Game & All the Fun Bits,’ a workshop on nose to tail cooking. Montreal’s Chuck Hughes teamed up with local chefs Frederic Tandy of Ratinaud Cuisine and Dave Smart at his restaurant Front and Central in Wolfville to create a dinner inspired by the screening of El Somni, a Spanish film about the infamous restaurant of the same name.
Hughes set up shop at the Al Whittle theatre on Friday to shuck dozens of oysters in celebration of Shuckers w/57 Degrees North, about international oyster shucking competitions showing in the main theatre.
Daniel Klein and Mirra Fine of The Perennial Plate took home the prize for Best Short documentary for Cook It Raw Charleston at the awards brunch. Chen Yu-Hsun’s Zone Pro Site: A Moveable Feast won Best Feature Drama.
Recent Comments