'Seal in the Modern Kitchen' is described as slick, Jamie Oliver-style cookbook.Leigh Phillips/The Globe and Mail
The Fur Institute of Canada is planning to produce English and French versions of a seal cookbook originally published by the European Union - the year before the EU banned imports of Canadian seal products.
Now something of an embarrassment for the EU, the large-format, hardbound 128-page Seal in the Modern Kitchen - published only in Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian - had never received much international notice.
But last week, the original co-ordinator of the cookbook project, Anita Storm, angry at the EU's seal ban, gave the fur institute the green light to produce its own versions of the book, which features recipes for such haute cuisine dishes as herb-stuffed seal schnitzel and seal Wellington with Madeira sauce.
"It's a really slick cookbook. Jamie Oliver-style," said David Barry, the institute's sealing-committee co-ordinator.
The group is now looking to raise the necessary funds to pay for the translation and publication, and to find a Canadian publisher. Some organizations have already indicated a willingness to come up with the cash, and the fur institute is hoping some provinces and territories will also provide funding. Mr. Barry says the institute has received an expression of interest from Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.
"We're hoping to use it as a propaganda prop to battle the ban," he said. "It's a very valuable document politically."
Published in 2006, the book was the product of a creative retreat for 13 of Scandinavia's top chefs, who crafted recipes aimed at rehabilitating seal meat as a tasty, lean ingredient for Michelin-star restaurants and a delicacy to be kept in the home foodie's pantry.
Its publication was part of a wider EU-bankrolled, €1-million program: "Seal: Our Common Resource," that worked to promote the use of seal products and ran from 2001 to 2007 in partnership with regional authorities from Sweden, Finland and Norway.
Under the directorship of Ms. Storm, the program also worked to incorporate the use of seal hide into college fashion curricula, improve game management and boost the sale of such seal-craft creations as jewellery, bags, gloves, lamps, briefcases and upholstery. A seal-leather-bound diary produced as part of the program was handed out as a gift to European prime ministers and presidents at a 2005 EU summit.
But in 2007, according to Ms. Storm, the program came to an end because "there was by then already so much discussion about the ban on seals."
She says she's disappointed about how the projects were wound up. She now looks after heritage preservation efforts for the Kvarken region in Sweden, but she continues to work on seal-promotion activities as well.
"I still co-ordinate things a bit, trying to help these people in my spare time," she said. "They call me if they want to sell seal meat or clothes or another product, and I try to put them in touch with people who want to buy them. Restaurants call looking for seal meat too."
Mr. Barry says that beyond its use as a campaign tool, the cookbook could be a great seller. The one commercial concern they have is that the recipes "have a real Scandinavian taste." He added: "Who knows, that may actually be a selling point, but we are also thinking about including some traditional Inuit recipes, maybe some from Quebec as well."
The people behind its original publication say that because of the importance of the issue, they are not looking to charge for the text and even want to come to Canada to help promote it.
The commission's regional development spokesman, Ton van Lierop, said of the seal program: "It absolutely did not amount to encouraging the killing of seals. The project only aimed to improve the image of a resource that was otherwise thought of as a problem for fishermen's livelihoods. Throughout we maintained a requirement that they respect the animal."
Conservative Christofer Fjellner, a Swedish member of the European Parliament and opponent of the seal ban, says the whole development is "highly hypocritical."
"Just before the ban came in, the EU was trying to promote making products from seals and selling them," he said. "The cookbook is proof that prior to the ban, the EU actually had some insight into the value of seals and was promoting the sector."
With a report from Teresa Küchler
Special to The Globe and Mail