University of Guelph celebrates Canadian cuisine

Ahead of Food Day Canada in August, the University of Guelph held an event to showcase its contributions to Canadian cuisine and food-related research.

Organizers of the event said it's important to make people more aware of Canada’s culinary identity.

Dozens gathered for food, music and vendors for the event, hosted by the University Of Guelph's Arrell Food Institute, Ontario Agricultural College, and Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics.

“We wanted to showcase all the different ways that the University of Guelph is Canada’s food university,” said Rebecca Gordon, the culinary projects lead at the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. “So we had displays where we were actually highlighting some of our food research and projects and we had a chef competition where we had three local chefs put together a Canadian meal and we also had a marketplace of different food vendors from the University of Guelph and we also had our local alumni.”

Food Day Canada is August 5. This year is extra special as it is the 20th anniversary and this will also be the first year the government is officially recognizing the date on the national calendar.

The Arrell Food Institute said those looking to celebrate Food Day Canada can either purchase local food, dine at a local restaurant or simply share stories about Canadian cuisine.