Home Cooked

Mike Greenberg made a big decision during the pandemic. He left his chef job at a trendy downtown Toronto restaurant, and went from nine tables to now making more than 5000 meals weekly 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.

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 conclusion of Kory's story, we are back in Rama First Nation with Kory at his dad’s old house. And we finally make his dad’s famous fish cakes together.

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. 

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.  

In March of 2020, like much of the rest of the world, Home Cooked abruptly stopped production on the first episode of this season. And for a while there, we weren’t sure we’d get back to it. But when the main subject of the story – with whom we began recording back in the summer of 2019 – continued inviting host Sarah Martin back for more interviews, his story gently and consistently grew, eventually becoming a three-part documentary. Join us for Kory Snache’s fish cakes and a new season of Home Cooked in 2024.

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. 

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.

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

From a century old sourdough starter to a caribou hunt on the edge of the Arctic Circle, more stories about family recipes and why they get passed on in a brand new season of our critically-acclaimed podcast, Home Cooked. 

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.  Homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. 

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. homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. 

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. homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. 

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. homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. 

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 wontons that gave him a jolt of sensory memory that would define his current success. homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. Photography: Christopher Wahl Illustrations: Charlotte Ficek

Natasha moved from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to The Netherlands before moving to Canada. The one constant growing up was her mom’s chicken biryani recipe. But Natasha can't cook - she says she can't even boil water - and she's scared that she'll never eat the delicious Pakistani dishes she grew up with after her mom is gone. Luckily her non-Pakistani husband is ready to step up to the plate and prepare the dish of her dreams for her birthday. homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos. -- Photography: Christopher Wahl Illustrations: Charlotte Ficek

A new show about family recipes and why they get passed on. Join host Sarah Martin as she takes us inside family kitchens to cook cherished recipes. Every episode contains three vital ingredients: a great yarn around a family recipe, delicious food and terrific characters. Visit homecookedpodcast.com for recipes, photos and videos.