From a depression-era soup designed to feed a hungry crowd, to a fish cake recipe with links to a 5000-year-old fishing weir, to the story of a complicated family and their love for a simple pie, more stories about family recipes and why they get passed on in a brand-new season of our critically-acclaimed podcast, Home Cooked, which will roll out through 2024.

Rita Leistner

SEASON 3 – EPISODE 4

EMERGENCY SOUP

Mike Greenberg made a big decision during the pandemic. He left his chef job at a trendy downtown Toronto restaurant, and went from serving nine tables to now making more than 5000 meals a week at the Daily Bread Food Bank’s industrial kitchen. Here, leaning on his grandma’s Emergency Soup recipe, he’s tackling a large and growing crisis in Canada – food insecurity.

Keesic Douglas

SEASON 3 – EPISODE 3

MNJIKNINI (THE FENCE MAN)

PART 3 ~ COOKING WITH KENTON

One hundred years of colonization, the outlawing of traditional harvesting methods, a global pandemic and the death of Kenton Snache – the man who gave us the fish cake recipe back in 2019. In this episode, we are back in Rama First Nation with Kory at his dad’s old house. And we finally get to make his dad’s famous fish cakes.

Rita Leistner

SEASON 3 – EPISODE 2

MNJIKNINI (THE FENCE MAN)

PART 2 ~ BENEATH THE SURFACE

In the second part of Kory’s story we learn how Rama First Nation was always a place for the fish harvest. Elder and story keeper Mark Douglas spent his life safeguarding the story of the 5000-year-old Mnjikaning fishing weirs between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. With younger leaders like Kory learning and retelling the story now, Mark feels like he can finally rest.

Rita Leistner

SEASON 3 – EPISODE 1

MNJIKNINI (THE FENCE MAN)

PART 1 ~ MISSING INGREDIENTS

For almost 100 years, the Chippewas of Rama were legally forbidden to fish, hunt and harvest on their traditional territories. For Kory Snache, learning to fish was a nighttime clandestine activity under constant police threat. With the Williams Treaties resettled now, Kory takes us spearfishing showing how his community held on to the vital ingredients needed to make his dad’s fish cakes.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 2 – EPISODE 3

IVY UPROOTED

When Ivy’s grandma died, the chef and food writer decided it was high time to finally learn how to make grandma Marthe’s famous tourtière recipe from the Gaspésie. Ivy visits her aunt Jeannine’s kitchen – a world apart from her mother’s hippie homestead kitchen in PEI – to discover her French-Canadian roots.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 2 – EPISODE 2

HARVEST ON THE ICE

Bernadette has a mission: To pass on her Inuit ancestors’ skills in finding and cooking food — in a harsh Arctic environment where harvesting has a whole new meaning, and survival means sharing everything.  On the edge of the Arctic Circle, Bernadette and her old friend Christopher take Sarah out onto the Arctic sea ice to hunt and harvest a whole caribou.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 2 – EPISODE 1

LIVING LEGACY

In 1898, during the Yukon Gold Rush, Ione’s grandfather brought a wad of sourdough starter, the essential ingredient in making generation after generation of delicious bread, hot cakes, waffles and cinnamon buns. Ione has achieved many things during her lifetime, but the most significant
may be guarding this precious commodity, and keeping its tradition alive — literally.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 6

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Karl fed his Jamaican chopped liver to his boys for breakfast, to fuel them for hockey practice. It worked: P.K. is an all-star defenceman in Nashville and Malcolm tends goal for Las Vegas. When the youngest, Jordan, followed his older brothers footsteps of playing in the NHL, it was the liver that kept him company on the road.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 5

MODEL KITCHEN

As a kid, Ashtyn was known for her love of food and her adventurous palate.  Becoming a model in New York City changed that.  Ashtyn is determined to reconcile her work with her fondness for food.  Luckily she has a sister who’s a professional chef to help her.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 4

DAWN’S PARTING GIFT

Shaun lost his Mom to cancer when he was in university. She was the one who gently pushed him to join the marching band when he was just a little kid growing up in freezing cold Regina. He would go on to become a professional trumpet player and composer. The trumpet and his go-to comfort food — Dawn’s chocolate chip cookies — have kept his Mom’s spirit alive.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 3

FLESH AND BLOOD

For José’s tightly-knit family, meals have always been an important time to be together — over a Colombian diet of meat, meat and more meat. At university, José learned to see some things differently and decided to become a vegan. But he can’t give up his seat at the family table, and his mom would never let that happen.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 2

ON THE BACK BURNER

At school, Nick was embarrassed by the smell of the Chinese food his parents packed him for lunch. When he decided to become a chef, he perfected French techniques under some of the top chefs in North America and Europe. Returning home, it was his grandmother’s dumplings that gave him a jolt of sensory memory that would define his current success.

Christopher Wall

SEASON 1 – EPISODE 1  

THE BIRYANI STOPS HERE

Natasha grew up moving from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to Holland to Canada. Her Mom’s chicken biryani turned every place into home. Today Natasha has a career, a husband, and a home of her own — except she’s a miserable cook who can’t even boil water. Yet she still craves that special chicken biryani. What will happen to this beloved recipe when her Mom is gone?

SUBSCRIBE TO HOME COOKED