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The Current Transcript for December 21, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

There's a lot of tension. A lot of people just want to get off despite some kids on here, some older people. So we just don't want to go off this widespread. That's been far too long.

MATT GALLOWAY: There is nothing quite like travelling home for the holidays. Not exactly the sentiment of those trying to get in or out of Vancouver this week where a massive snowstorm, stranded people on planes and at the airport for hours. Coming up, misery in B.C. and how travel across this country could be dicey this holiday season. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

Salt preserved ingredients makes things taste better as salt brings flavour out. These other salt in ingredients because they've got some fermentation and fermentation is flavour.

MG: Canada's Naomi Duguid has written a shelf full of cookbooks exploring the food and culture of Burma, China, India and beyond. And now she has turned her curiosity to the most basic of ingredients. In an hour, we revisit our conversation about the miracle of salt. We begin, though, with the man chosen to lead the culture change at Hockey Canada. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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New Hockey Canada chair Hugh Fraser on addressing allegations and restoring trust

Guests: Hugh Fraser, Robyn Doolittle

MG: After months of controversy over its handling of sexual assault allegations, Hockey Canada has new leadership. Retired Judge Hugh Fraser was elected chair of the board of the organization this past weekend. He will head a completely new board of directors, whose members include former women's national team captain Cassie Campbell-Pascall. The question is whether the new faces will be enough to usher in the culture change that has been called for. Hugh Fraser. Good morning.

HUGH FRASER: Good morning. That's why we're.

MG: Glad to have you here. Why did you take this job?

HUGH FRASER: It's good for a lot of reasons. Like many Canadians, I am a passionate hockey fan. I had two boys who became very involved in hockey. And although I'm someone who as an immigrant, when I was a young immigrant to Canada, I really wanted to play. But my parents couldn't afford to to put me in hockey. But when I became a parents, why my boys became involved, proceeded to a very high level and had one and one son who made it all the way to the to the NHL. And I've been watching on the sidelines as some of the events have unfolded over the past few months. I'm very concerned about the sport that I love and perhaps believing that in some small way I could make a contribution to getting things fixed.

MG: Pascal St is the federal minister responsible for sport, has said there is a toxic culture problem that is ingrained in hockey in this country. Do you believe that that there is a toxic culture that runs through hockey?

HUGH FRASER: Well, hockey certainly has a culture, its culture issues, as do all sports. I'm not sure if I would describe it as toxic, but there is a culture issue and it's one that must change. I'm optimistic that it that it will change. And I think that hockey in Canada can be a leader in sports and in reflecting those changes.

MG: If you, if you wouldn't use the word toxic, how would you describe the culture of hockey in this country right now?

HUGH FRASER: I think it's very reflective of our societal issues. You know, in my career as a judge, we saw many similar issues and they make their way into sport, not surprisingly. But I think we have to make sure that hockey does not become a safe haven for people who want to engage in that kind of behaviour.

MG: And do you believe it has been that it's become a safe haven for people who want to engage in that kind of behaviour, that kind of behaviour, if we're talking about most recently the allegations involving sexual assault?

HUGH FRASER: Well, I think that goes hand-in-hand with what we we see it sometimes as the entitlement again or words. We hear the culture of entitlement that perhaps there are certain individuals who believe that they've reached a point where they're not going to be held accountable for their their conduct, or they're either too important or no one's going to find out. And that's something that we believe needs to change and it will change.

MG: You said after you were elected chair on Saturday that our focus is on making the sport safer and more inclusive and in rebuilding that trust. How specifically will you go about rebuilding trust in hockey and in hockey Canada?

HUGH FRASER: To rebuild that? We're going to make the world safer. Safer. We've we're enhancing the safe sports initiatives that, for example, hockey has now joined the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner. We want to make sport more inclusive and so that it's more reflective of our society. There are many other things that have been done, including beefing up the screening processes for participants in the sport.

MG: What will that mean in terms of the leadership of Hockey Canada? What specifically would you look for in a new CEO for this organisation?

HUGH FRASER: The new CEO will have to share the vision that we have that someone who will bring fresh ideas understand, demand, accountability. We're going to hold ourselves accountable and that person will have to ensure that they and enforce our belief and in due and due process that everyone will be bound by the same codes of conduct.

MG: Do you think that it's important to include voices from outside of hockey in that process and whether the CEO is somebody who comes from outside that world or not, but in the rebuilding process? How important is it to have those voices from outside the sport itself?

HUGH FRASER: Yes, I mean, hockey is going to listen to all key participants, those within the sport, but outside of the sport as well. I think it's very important to hear from as many voices as possible and we're early in the process in terms of moving towards that CEO engagement. But there certainly won't be any limitations, as I understand it, where that individual's background is one that has to be necessarily heavily linked to hockey or not linked to hockey.

MG: As you well know, employees are looking at Hockey Canada now to investigate new information that's come out about an alleged group sexual assault that took place in London, Ontario, in 2018. The Globe and Mail reports that police say they have reasonable grounds to believe that five players from Canada's 2018 world junior team sexually assaulted a woman. And that a Hockey Canada official gave one of the players a heads up after that woman went to police. What do you make of those claims?

HUGH FRASER: Yes. I won't comment too much on matters that are going to be before the court. It's our view that that some of that information is not factually accurate. We're doing everything that we can do to verify that. As you can appreciate, it would be very concerned about those types of allegations. But as I say, in our view, there are some inaccuracies, but we won't comment much further than that because it is a matter that the very the police are investigating.

MG: Just it just to be just to be clear, though, I mean, you said that something in that is is not accurate. What is not accurate and what the Globe and Mail has reported?

HUGH FRASER: Well, it just the heads up part of it, I think, has a certain quotation there that there's a suggestion there of I think the term used is a heads up or tipping off, and I won't get into any more detail. I think that that's going to have to come out. I think I won't say anything more about that other than that. It's our view that it's not maybe portrayed as accurately as we think the evidence will ultimately show.

MG: This is important in part because and again, I understand that you can't get too deep into the details, but that heads up led one of the players, the reporting says, to contact the woman at the centre of the story via Instagram and text message and urge her to make the issue go away.

HUGH FRASER: Yes. And that that would be an important piece to say. From our perspective, we are going to cooperate fully with the London Police Services investigation and clearly provide whatever information Canada may have on that. On that point. So if that is an area that that needs to be pursued, that can rest assured that Hockey Canada's full cooperation will be behind that.

MG: Hockey Canada has said that it's carrying out its own investigation into this alleged incident from 2018. When will the results of that investigation be made public? Do you think.

HUGH FRASER: That that investigation is, you know, at this stage, it will not be and be made public for certain legal requirements. But that, again, is something that's and I won't comment on that further, given the nature of the investigation, that is something that could well be become part of the and the police services investigation.

MG: Why wouldn't that investigation that Hockey Canada is doing be made public?

HUGH FRASER: There are certain legal parameters that would prevent that from taking place, Matt, that there was a previous independent process in place at the time of the launching of this investigation. And we are we are bound by by those rules.

MG: In part, I ask that because Hockey Canada has been accused of stonewalling and covering up this matter and covering up other allegations of sexual misconduct involving players in the Canadian system. So how do you go about being transparent and proving to people that that the work is being done, but also that they can believe in that work being done?

HUGH FRASER: I think in the area of transparency, there have been a number of significant steps taken, for example, with publishing of financial reports. We think the transparency is that is very important and will do everything that we can to make sure that that takes place. We also have to bear in mind that there are due process rights in matters of this nature, and we also have to have to respect those also.

MG: Do you believe Hockey Canada has tried to cover this up in the past?

HUGH FRASER: Well, I'm not going to comment on those actions of the of the previous administration. All I can say is that we will definitely do things differently. We are committed to doing things differently. We're going to be as open and as transparent as possible.

MG: What would you say to parents who and players who saw some of the fees that they paid to Hockey Canada being used to pay off survivors of sexual assault who want to know questions about that transparency, but also are concerned about where the money that they paid into into the organisation went. What would you say to those parents and players?

HUGH FRASER: We would say that yes, we would be disappointed as well. Millions of Canadians have had their children involved at the entry level in hockey and moving through the ranks and it's disappointing to hear of situations. But once again, I would say that we are committed to making sure that that things are done differently and that's going to be part of the overall governance review that the Hockey Canada is engaged in now to make sure that that thing that was not done as appropriately as it should have been in the past, that that those situations will not be repeated.

MG: What do you will show that things are different when it comes to Hockey Canada?

HUGH FRASER: I think people are going to see that there has been a greater commitment to transparency, that the sport is more inclusive, more reflective of our society, and that the people are going to be held accountable.

MG: I guess the last question is just about changing the culture. There have been questions in the course of the conversations that we've had on this programme about this, where people have questioned whether the culture of Hockey Canada itself can be changed. Why do you believe that it can be changed?

HUGH FRASER: Well, I mean, I think you've seen some of that change already. I think it's reflected in the in the new leadership. I think there's already really more more diversity. There's definitely going to be more listening to the participants, the members, government, community members. We're going to do everything that we can to engage with all of those stakeholders.

MG: But that's at a very high level, right down at the grassroots. Why do you believe that this that this can change?

HUGH FRASER: Because I think that that's reflected from the top. I think when people see the changes at the higher levels, it does filter down. It may take some time, but we're going to try to do more outreach into the community at the lower levels as well, to engage the community at that level and listen to them and find out what concerns them and what they believe that can be done to to improve things.

MG: We have a lot of work in front of you.

HUGH FRASER: There is a lot of work that's a lot of work, but it's a challenge that we embrace.

MG: I hope we have the chance to talk again as the work unfolds. It's important for all the reasons that you've articulated. In the meantime, I'm really glad to have you on the programme this morning. Hugh Fraser, thank you very much.

HUGH FRASER: Thank you.

MG: Take care.

HUGH FRASER: Bye bye. Bye bye.

MG: Hugh Fraser is the newly elected chair of the board at Hockey Canada. I spoke with him yesterday and since then, hockey can. Ennahda has put out a statement saying that the independent investigation of the 2018 incident is now complete. Robyn Doolittle is an investigative reporter with the Globe and Mail. She's been covering the story. We referenced her reporting in that conversation. Robyn, good morning.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Good morning.

MG: You had a chance to listen to the new chair of the Board of Hockey Canada, Hugh Fraser. What stood out to you and what he said?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: A couple of things stood out. First, he talked about a potential inaccuracy within the police filing. I don't I can't exactly say what he was talking about, but I had a suspicion based on a comment. Hockey Canada sent the Globe yesterday. They seem to be it is their view that the they were not notified of the players identity with a photo that they did not they have no record of receiving a photo of the person who's referred to as player one in these documents. Just to back up a little, we'll recall if you've been following this story, M is the complainant here. And the day the day of this early morning alleged attack, her mother contacted police and her mother's husband contacted Hockey Canada. And in the filing, it says that he gave a photo of the player at a Hockey Canada, which is important because if they have a photo, then they would know the identity. So I think that that might be something that they're quibbling with. So that was something that jumped out. And also, I thought it was interesting when you asked him to talk about the toxic culture, he seems sort of reluctant to to get into that area and-

MG: And use that word toxic.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Yeah. And use more like the kind of the broader societal learnings that were going through. And that stood out to me because I think that, you know, again, we don't have any charges laid in this case. These are all allegations that are not proven in court. I do feel like the best case scenario here isn't great, right? Like, even if there's not criminal activity, this isn't great. And recall that the the events that we're talking about occurred in the summer of 2018. MeToo is still very fresh in the news, constantly being covered. And and that this is this the reaction, not just with the players, but with the institutions around the players, I think is very troubling.

MG: This incident, again, we're talking about the allegations of sexual assault, the group sexual assault at two in the 2018 world junior team involving some players from that team, allegedly. As I mentioned, you'd been doing reporting on this and new information came to light because of those court filings by police in London, Ontario. Just briefly, walk us through that, what we now know about those allegations.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Okay. So the document is that's 94 pages. Police filed it with court because they were asking for additional investigative measures, including warrants and production orders. One of those orders was for the fruits of the investigation from the independent probe that Hockey Canada has commissioned. So that's one thing that those records seem to be in the hands now of police throughout this document. They're laying out the cases against different players. They're including summaries of interviews with players, some with summaries of interviews with em. It's kind of the fullest picture we have of that night. And some big revelations are really jumped out as one that this this allegation that the the stepfather submitted a photo to Hockey Canada of the player from the from the bar that night, Jack's Bar. There were photos that were posted on Facebook, which would seem to contradict statements that Hockey Canada has made that they didn't know the identities of the players involved. I mean, and what's interesting, you know, yesterday we got a comment from Hockey Canada with I think some interesting wording there, saying that it wasn't that they alerted the players involved, they alerted the players and the parents of the players whose room the incident occurred in. Okay. The other big kind of thing there, there is discussion Ian talks about a, quote, older, well-dressed gentleman who was at the bar with the players buying drinks alleged to have kind of poured a shot down her throat, talking up player one and says, take care of him. And I think that that's something that, for obvious reasons, caught a lot of people's attention. As, again, we're talking about the wider mechanisms, institutions, individuals around these players who are who are young, they're adults, but they are young. We found out the police believe they have reasonable grounds, as you mentioned. And then I think the other really big headline when we're trying to talk about the difference between the police investigation in 2018 and today, is they seem to have discovered a group chat between members of the World Junior Hockey team where they are discussing the events and throughout the document there are references to player one texting team-mates saying that there's a girl in his room. You know, one kind of passage from the filing says this is asked after player one, Ian, have had consensual sex, which is not contested. She says that she went to the hotel room with the understanding that they were going to have consensual sex. And they did. And when it was done, Player one quote sent a text message asking if anyone in the group conversation would like, and then the word is redacted. It says specific sex acts. And then another Team-Mate replied, Yes. And there's kind of various versions of this throughout the chat as people talk about this group chat. I think those are the big headlines from that filing.

MG: Hockey Canada's own investigation into this we heard just now from Hugh Fraser will not be made public, he says, so as to not jeopardise the police investigation. Are you surprised to hear that?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: I am very surprised to hear that. Yes, it seems they've been talking about this investigation, pinning a lot of the public goodwill on this investigation and the outcome of the investigation. You know, obviously, they're not I can understand why they would not be submitting transcripts of player interviews out into the public sphere within the filing. Actually, they discussed this a little bit and talk about how the players engaged in that process with the understanding it would be confidential. So I guess you can kind of figure out what your version of Confidential is. But to have nothing public, I think, is just not the right foot maybe to start off on, if we're talking about an agenda of transparency going forward.

MG: I guess just in the last minute or so that we have in those further steps to come, what will show you that Hockey Canada is being transparent in how it addresses? Doesn't matter whether you use the word toxic or not, but how it addresses the culture of not just the organisation but of hockey itself in this country. What will show you that that is being done in a meaningful way?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: I mean, as a reporter that's covering this, things that I'll be looking for are, you know, honesty and, and being proactive. I think you can always get a sense if someone's being transparent when there's information that comes out that is not flattering, that doesn't feel like this is a spin. I'm not saying that that's what's happening or not, but when you ask, what will I be looking for. And certainly that the idea that we would have no idea what's in this report, I think is is going to be a non-starter. We're going to find out what's in this report, so they might as well give us some indication of of what's in it.

MG: Robyn, thank you very much.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Thank you.

MG: Robyn Doolittle, investigative reporter with The Globe and Mail, and she is in Toronto. Your CBC News is up next. And then we will head to Vancouver, too. Difficult place to get in and out of the airport these days. Snow wreaking havoc on people's plans to get home for the holidays. People have been stuck on planes at the airport trying to get to the airport, trying to get out of the airport for a long while now. A lot of frustration. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about your rights in a situation like that coming up in about six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the Current on CBC Radio. Stay with us.

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Heavy snow strands passengers at Vancouver airportGuests: Seham Asfar, Corey Malone, David Phillips

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, the miracle of salt. We will hear from food writer Naomi. Good about this simple yet essential ingredient. She's here in just under 30 minutes. But first, delays lasting overnight. Countless flights cancelled inside Vancouver Airport during a snowstorm.

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MG: Well, you may be dreaming of a white Christmas, but only if you have nowhere to go. Heavy snowfall left Vancouver airport staff and passengers scrambling yesterday. Flights were delayed. An unprecedented number were cancelled. Many people were left with no option but to sleep on the floor of the airport, while others waited more than 10 hours trapped in planes on the tarmac. Corey Malone is one of those passengers stuck on a plane and so was Seham Asfar. They both join us now. Good morning to you both.

COREY MALONE: Morning.

MG: Corey, where are you this morning?

COREY MALONE: I am currently calling you right now from my home in British Columbia.

MG: Where are you supposed to be right now?

COREY MALONE: I am currently supposed to be in Bolton, Ontario, enjoying the Christmas holidays with my mother.

MG: Ah. We will get to the the reason why you're not there in a moment. Seham, you're there as well? Oh, we'll connect back with Sam in a few minutes. Tell us a little bit about what happened to you yesterday, Corey. What unfolded?

COREY MALONE: So my journey actually with with life started on the 19th of December. So I knew there was a storm rolling in and I wanted to get prepared. So I had left my apartment at around 1:30 p.m.. My flight was supposed to take off and around 5 p.m. I get to the airport. It gets delayed at 5:30 and you know, things happen. I understand. So I check in. I'm, you know, no stress at all. And once I get to my gate now it's been pushed to 7:30. I don't actually get onto the plane until about 8:00. And from there, once I load into the plane, then we wait two hours where nothing happens. And we're not really told too much other than, you know, we're trying to just take off. We start rolling away at 10 p.m. and then we stop right before the runway. And again the pilot comes on and says, we're waiting for snow to subside. And by 11:30, we find out that our flight is cancelled and we're going to be heading back to the gate. So we're looking at 11:30 p.m., 12 a.m. right now, and another eight, nine hours go by with very little to no communication from the terminal itself. The WestJet staff, including the pilot and the flight attendants, were very accommodating, very hospital as much as they could be. But they had no information. They basically had as much information as we did. So we were in the dark with very little food, water supplies for like 12 hours. And, and yeah, so I got back to the gate at 8 a.m., so I had stayed in a plane for 12 hours.

MG: Yikes. You can laugh about it now, but not at that moment.

COREY MALONE: Yeah. I mean, most of the, most of us on the flight, you know, were very patient and took a positive spin on on everything. We were thankful that, like, you know, we were safe and we weren't hurt, of course. But I mean, at the same time, yeah, it was quite frustrating to be in that situation.

MG: I could imagine. Perhaps frustrating is not even strong enough word. Seham, what happened to you? Where were you supposed to be and what unfolded?

SEHAM ASFAR: So I was I actually when I got to my destination, I left Phoenix. So I was coming home to Vancouver and we left Phoenix at 7:30 p.m. We were supposed to leave originally at 2:30, but we knew about the storm. So the five hour delay wasn't a big deal and it's a pretty quick flight. So we didn't really think much of it. So we landed at YVR at 10 p.m. and when we landed, the captain told us that there was no available gates and we were waiting for a gate. But all of us assume that that was going to be a few minutes delay there, just getting something set up and we'll be on our way shortly. And then about an hour passed and the captain came on and said that he's still waiting to get the clearance to go through to our gate. And there's a few planes waiting because the gates were full. So when YVR cancelled all these flights and these flights ever made it out, they never actually moved the planes from the gate. So when all of these incoming flights came in, there was no gates for them to deplane at. So next thing you know, it's two in the morning and we still don't have a gate. And it's been four hours at this point between two and 5 a.m.. The captain just stopped giving us updates because he wanted to let people sleep and there were no updates. We were simply just stuck on the runway. And till we got clearance.

MG: When, when did you finally get off the plane?

SEHAM ASFAR: We finally got off at 9:00 a.m.

MG: And so you'd been on the plane for how long?

SEHAM ASFAR: 11 hours we were stuck on that plane. And the flight attendants were doing their best job, and so was the captain. I know. They know it wasn't their fault, but there was no food on board because this wasn't, this wasn't planned. So within those 11 hours, the only food we were all offered on board was two granola bars.

MG: Corey, did they give you anything to eat or drink when you were stuck on the plane?

COREY MALONE: I mean, yeah, just like in my colleagues position here, we didn't really have much in the way of food. And so like there was snacks, there was beef jerky, Pringles, a couple of granola bars, but it was basically everything that they had in their like paid concessions menu. And then once that was gone, it was gone. There was some, some water that was kind of floating around periodically. But yeah, there wasn't too much. I was just thankful that we just had enough toilet paper on the flight, to be honest with you.

MG: Small mercies. Seham had mentioned that communication kind of was cut off from the the cockpit because the captain wanted people to sleep. Did you did you hear anything from. You know, officials in the plane, folks who are working to tell you what was going on and when you might be able to get off the plane.

COREY MALONE: Yeah. So, I mean, the pilot was was was doing their absolute best in order to communicate any, if any information to us. But they were pretty much kept in the dark as much as we were. So they would come on and check on us periodically for every hour and a half, two hours being like, Hey, it's a pilot speaking. I wish I had more news for you, but unfortunately, I've got nothing. So I'm going to keep you updated. And and, yeah, so he would he would check in on us from. From time to time. And, like, there was no new information, of course, but it was just nice to know at least that they were trying to make some sort of contact to make us feel that we weren't alone. But I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, we still ended up staying on that plane for 12 hours.

MG: Seham, how did you cope with being stuck on this plane and not being able to get off? I mean, it could be a very stressful situation for some people not knowing, you know, when they're going to be able to to leave the metal tube that they're sitting in.

SEHAM ASFAR: Mm hmm. It was very hard to cope. I did have a actually a panic attack at one point. I was very, very stressed. My dad and his girlfriend were waiting for me in the parking lot until 5:30 in the morning. So that was also giving me anxiety because I just felt so bad that they were sitting there waiting for me for so long. And the way I cope was on Twitter. I, I was on Twitter, I was talking to other people on other planes that we were all kind of, you know, sharing that this experience that we were in. And I actually knew what was going on before the captain announced it because someone on Twitter shared the lake with you can listen in on like the ground control radio. So before we actually ran out of fuel and before the captain announced that I already knew that we ran out of fuel because I could hear on the radio that they were calling for more fuel.

MG: What would you want? What would you want? Just before I let you both go and ask you first time, what would you want to hear from from Air Canada. I mean, is it compensation? Is it apology? What do you what do you want to hear from them?

SEHAM ASFAR: Yeah, definitely. I am certain we're going to get some compensation and I hope that they're also going to pay their their flight attendants, because I know that flight attendants do not get paid for time, that they're stuck on the tarmac. So I really hope Air Canada makes an exception and pays these people extensive overtime as they deserve. But I definitely want to hear some sort of accountability from Air Canada and from YVR. Air Canada is the perfect example as to why you should always have emergency food on board emergency supplies, because you never know when you're going to get stuck, you know, for 11 hours. So definitely need some accountability. And I would like why we are to acknowledge their mistake, acknowledge where they went wrong and what their plan is for the future to make sure that doesn't happen to other people.

MG: And Corey, just quickly from you, what are you looking to hear from WestJet?

COREY MALONE: I'm going to just I'm going to echo everything that that you said here. But I also just want to make a comment that, like, I just feel that YVR itself was not ready at all for these conditions. And, I mean, I'm not necessarily an expert, but I have lived in Canada most of my life and I have flown out in these wintry conditions. And and realistically, you know, if we had more assistance on the runway trying to clear things and removing the snow and just getting those planes ready to fly, it could have been a situation where, you know, instead of deplaning me, we could have taken off once the skies were were clear and just changed crew so you know accountability you know making sure that those airline staff are compensated and and just and just, you know, overall just having more compassion for people who are travelling, especially at this time. And we I realised that there is a lot of a lot of travellers at this, at this moment. But you know realistically we're, we're paying for this service and you know, if you're not able to provide it adequately, like just be honest with us and and make sure that, you know, there is more communication about if we're actually going to be able to get home or not.

MG: I wish you the best of luck in getting home because you still have a flight to hopefully get through. And there's more weather as we're going to hear shortly on its way. Corey, good luck and thanks a lot.

COREY MALONE: Thank you. Thank you so much.

MG: Seham. Thank you.

SEHAM ASFAR: Yes, no problem. Take care.

MG: Corey Malone, a WestJet passenger, Seham Asfar, an Air Canada passenger, both stuck on planes in Vancouver yesterday because of that storm. It's a similar story for Vladimir in Vancouver. He was on board a flight headed to Hawaii.

SOUNDCLIP

I was on the tarmac last night for about eight hours trying to get to Honolulu. And then after about two de-icing attempts, I think they finally called it. There's a lot of kids on board. They ate pretzels twice and a little bit of water. That's about it.

MG: Ted had a little bit more luck. His flight managed to land in Vancouver, but delays meant that he missed his connection.

SOUNDCLIP

We were late coming in. I thought, we're going to be close to catch our flight over to Victoria. And we ended up sitting on the tarmac there for about 40 or 50 minutes because there was no gate available for us. And when we finally got off the plane, it was mayhem at the airport. We had no idea we missed our flight. There was one last flight leaving to go over to Victoria. WestJet was overwhelmed. There was so many people trying to speak to their employees on what to do. And I went to one line up and it looked fairly lengthy. But you know what? Rather than staying here, I'm going to go and talk to somebody in the front. [unintelligible] him and they sort of took them five hours.

MG: Gabor Lukacs is president of Air Passenger Rights. This is an organisation fighting to ensure that passengers have a voice in situations like this. Gabor, good morning to you.

GABOR LUKACS: Good morning.

MG: What sort of legal framework is there for passengers if, as we heard, people are stuck on a plane for ten, 12 hours?

GABOR LUKACS: The greatest problem is not the legal framework, is there, what kind of enforcement there is under the law, under the air passenger protection regulations, passengers are entitled in situations like this to food and drink in reasonable quantities. They are also entitled to disembark the aircraft after three hours. That's what the law says. I would add, though, that before APPR, actually, airlines were allowed to keep passengers on the tarmac only for 90 minutes. So actually, under the APPR current government more than doubled the length of time passengers can be kept on the tarmac. It was political concert or is it a time because the Senate actually decided to be the passengers and said that 90 minutes is the maximum that passengers should be kept on the tarmac?

MG: I was going to say Air Canada in a statement said that having customers wait on aircraft was the safest option in this situation.

GABOR LUKACS: I beg to differ with that. There were no terrorists on the tarmac. There was no risk that people may be shot. Certainly, gates are the preferred way of getting people off an aircraft. But there are bridges too in every airport. I'm sure everybody who has been travelling for long enough knows that there is such a thing as a as a stair, as it's something that you can push to the aircraft and get people off. It may not be perfect, but keeping people for 12 hours without adequate food and beverages on an aircraft that's not a safe option, is not reasonable. It's really a forcible confinement of passengers. So in my mind, that's not only crosses the line with respect to the APPR, it also crosses the line with respect to criminal laws. You cannot confine a person in a car against their will. These passengers had every right to be off this flight.

MG: Air Canada has also said that it's going to offer passengers a $1,000 goodwill gesture for the lengthy time required to remain on board. Are there any ways that passengers can go about getting more, broader, broader compensation? I mean, people will have missed connecting flights. People may have missed holidays there. Are there ways that they could get compensation for what they have gone through?

GABOR LUKACS: You know, for for the $1,000 Air Canada referring to, I would love to know whether they're talking about cash or actually some kind of dubious travel vouchers for future travel, maybe being caught being stuck on the tarmac for another 12 hours, next time passenger travels. In terms of actual damages, you could see compensation for being unlawfully kept on the flight for that long on the tarmac, because that's a form of forcible confinement, arguably, but just for delay self. It is something which was outside the carrier's control. Clearly we all understand that weather is not something the airline is responsible for. So that is actually something that is owed a passenger responsibility financially to deal with and possibly matter for insurance.

MG: I guess just finally, if you find yourself in the situation, a lot of people will be travelling now and we're just about to talk about whether that's going to be blowing across much of this country and you end up being stuck on a plane like this. What do you suggest people do?

GABOR LUKACS: Personally, I would call 911 after three hours. They have no right to keep you on a plane.

MG: What is that going to accomplish? Well, in the midst of a snowstorm where people can't even get around on the roads.

GABOR LUKACS: They, at the airports, they have to have a way of getting you off the plane. The rule is very simple. If there is such a bad weather that you have a risk of not being able to get out of the plane, that plane should not be taking off from the departure point or should be landing in a different airport where you can get people off the plane, where you can get people to a facility where they can get food and beverages. Certainly, if the storm is so bad that you cannot even access the aeroplane, that's not some reasonable place to land as a reasonable place to operate flights to and from it for the time being. Meteorology is not a rocket science in the sense that we cannot know as an airline cannot know what the weather will be in a couple of hours. This are very well predictable and there are very good models. Now, it's not like we are in the 1950s where we had very few tools and the airlines have to act responsibly and people can be injured physically can get ill on a plane and we should wait until that happens and only then get them off. The law says three hours and that's what the airline has to respect.

MG: Gabor Lukacs, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

GABOR LUKACS: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Covered look at. She is president of air passenger rights. He was in Halifax. All of this unfolded because Vancouver got clobbered with a lot of snow. Vancouver is not likely to be the only place in this country where weather will disrupt holiday travel plans. Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, joins us now. Dave, good morning to you.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How unusual is this type of snowfall in Vancouver? It's not just the snow, but it's also cold temperatures all over in the Pacific area.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Well, Matt, we saw this coming two weeks ago. We saw minus six degree temperatures in Siberia and this air left home and came across the Arctic and flowed down the Yukon and into northern British Columbia. I mean, this cold air is is like molasses. It's heavy, thick. It hugs the ground and it just moves like a bully. It can't kick it out. And so all the valleys and nooks and crannies in British Columbia filled with cold air and any kind of weather system coming across the Pacific, well, it'll only be the white stuff that it brings. And what we saw in Victoria and Vancouver particularly were huge amounts of snow. I mean, Vancouver has, as Victoria has had more snow than Montreal this year. I mean, that's one of the snowiest cities in the world. And so they've had a year's worth of snow already and we're not to the first day of winter yet. So this is seems unusual. But if you look at annually the coldest and the snowiest month for Victoria, Vancouver is December. So it's not- it's happened before, but there are some years where they don't get any snow. So it was really it's that combination of very cold and brutally cold with wind chills in the northern part of the province of -55 and I think -26 in the southern part in terms of wind chill. So, hey, this was early, but it was that combination of put the cold in and then any weather systems we know come across the Pacific always. And hey, it's only going to be the snow and not the rain.

MG: What about the rest of the country? There are warnings of major winter storms in in many parts of the country, including central Ontario and further East.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Our weather advisories, warnings for ten provinces and three territories. I mean, the cold, we've got 116 districts in Canada that are cold, the extreme cold. And of course, we see in the east this beast of a storm that is still maybe two days away, but well advertised for almost a week. And it's going to affect, of course, travel plans. People are going to have to recalibrate their plans or cancel them. And it's affecting all of pretty well, all of Ontario, Quebec and all of the Atlantic provinces. And it's going to be a messy mix. No records at all in that match in terms of cold and snow. But it's the combination of, hey, rain and snow, that messy mix and the flash freeze, which is not often we hear about that, but within hours are going to go in maybe a drop of 15 degrees in 12 hours. And and that will create slick conditions and and treacherous and blowing and drifting snow. Not a lot of snow, but hey is still be blowing and lifted up. So I think everybody is facing this kind of misery. But, you know, there's some good news in the we see Vancouver after some some more snow until about New Year's Eve and then temperatures get kind of near normal with rain. How they're used to that. And even Calgary -30 this morning on Christmas morning or Christmas afternoon will be plus four. And of course, in eastern Canada will that storm will be probably in Atlantic Canada as rain. The clean up will be here, but then we'll get sort of a few multi days of lake effect snow in and those areas that are familiar with it. So hey, everybody sets off misery, enjoys company, then all Canadians are facing the same kind of weather misery. Maybe not in the same form, but it's clearly winter. And today is the first official day of winter.

MG: Certainly is the solstice. I mean, one of the things it kind of amplifies that misery is that this is a busy travel time, maybe more so this year, because for the last few years people haven't been travelling as much and haven't been able to get together for a big Christmas or holiday dinner. So you just wonder whether that's it's going to amplify the stress that people feel hearing you talk about flash freezes and possible snowfall and as you say, the messy mix.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Oh, absolutely. I think there's been a pent up of people wanting to get to grandma's house this year for the first time or have the, you know, relatives come into your a lot of people coming in of cities and out of cities. And, of course, last minute shopping, all of that happens. But I think it's the fact that we haven't been able to do this in a in a kind of a way that now we can almost be liberated and people are doing it. They're travelling when they didn't in the last two or three years. And then all of a sudden, weather creates a real problem.

MG: Do you like this kind of weather, David?

DAVID PHILLIPS: You know, it's an age thing for me. What I try to do is I embrace it. I try to say, well, okay.

MG: Doesn't sound like you like it. It sounds like you tolerate it.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Well, I do, but I don't hibernate. I don't migrate. I say, you know, hey, if I've got good footwear and well dressed, hey, I love to go for a long winter's night in the snowy forest. And and so I'm not tobogganing or skating, but I love walking and in the elements. I think as long as you're prepared for it and and tell people, I think one of the things, you know, we talk about pilots having flight plans. Well, I think people have to have their own sort of plan in terms of, well, hey, I'm going to leave here and go there. I'll be back. This is the route I'm taking. And so that and make sure your cell phone is charged. I think you'll be okay.

MG: Unless you're flying, perhaps. Dave, good to talk to you as always. Thank you very much.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Dave Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada. One of the neat things that was done years ago is a conversation around who's coming home. And yes, the weather can complicate things, but this is a time of the year, and particularly this time this year when people haven't been travelling, as Dave was saying, where people are on the move. And so if you have people who are coming home that you're particularly excited about, just let us know this is it. Yes, the weather can complicate things and create that additional stress, but it does have a nice moment to it when people are on the move. So let us know who is coming home in your household this season. Email us thecurrent @cbc.ca Or you can tweet us at The Current. CBC, perhaps you'll be cooking for those who come home. Coming up after your regional update, we'll talk about a simple ingredient that can transform a dish. My conversation with Naomi Duguid about her book, The Miracle of Salt. It is about that ingredient. It's also about the history. We'll talk about salt coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current. Stay with us.

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Food writer Naomi Duguid on the history and versatility of salt

Guest: Naomi Duguid

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. If you know anything about Canadian art, you probably know the Group of Seven. What you may not know about one of the members of the Group of Seven is how he became a sleuth for the Ontario Provincial Police. You will hear that story tomorrow on the programme from Jon Dallandrea. John's new book is The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case, The Group of Seven and Tom Thompson Forgeries. Jon says Group of Seven fakes are still on the market.

SOUNDCLIP

And that was an example. I note six months or so ago that in a way Jackson painting showed up, not had one of the mainstream, highly credible auction houses. It showed up at a sort of second tier auction that doesn't really deal that much in art. And this was at hey, why Jackson painting there was painted on board, but the grain on the board was vertical rather than horizontal. And Jackson on the stand was showing a painting that was on that kind of vertical grained board. And he said, I never paint on that because it works against your painting. So I actually called the the auctioneer who had this painting and said, you just might want to get this double checked because I don't believe this painting is right. I got an email back a week or so later saying We spoke to our expert. He thinks it's okay. It's sold for $40,000. So somebody has $40,000. A pretty questionable art hanging proudly on a wall somewhere.

MG: Yikes. Jon Dellandrea will be on the programme tomorrow talking about art fraud and the Group of Seven with guest host Mark Kelly. Take what they say with a grain of salt. They've got a salty attitude. They're really salt of the earth type people. Just some of the ways in which salt has made its way into culture and language beyond food. It has now also made its way into the repertoire of Naomi Duguid food writing. Naomi has written several cookbooks based on her travels around the world. Her latest book is The Miracle of Salt, and I spoke with Naomi Duguid in October. Here's our conversation: You have written books about bread and rice and India and Burma and things that are hot and sour and salty and sweet, why a whole book about salt?

NAOMI DUGUID: Well, you know, I kind of think, how did it take me so long to stumble into this? When it's the... it's the first thing. It's the only food we have to eat. Everything else we can... You know, of course we need water, but food, the one food, actual foodstuff we need is salt. We can get it by drinking the blood of animals, you know, but otherwise we really need salt and... Wow, you know. So I'm a traveller in the world of salt and people said, Oh, you're not going to a particular place. You're not going to take us to a place. But I'm actually it's this huge world, you know, and I've been time travelling because I've been reading about history and I've been going to some salt making places and I've been to some other salt making places before. And I'm still a beginner, you know, it's however many years along in this project and I sort of think... As I am always drawn to rice and grains generally and breads. Now any time there's talk of salt, my ears are pricked right up and I'm listening. I'm listening for.... And people tell me salt stories. That's the other fun thing.

MG: Can you explain... we'll talk about salt, but can you just describe for people who don't know your work, what you do? Like you said, you take us to places. How do you describe what it is that you do?

ND: Matt, that's such an unfair question. I mean, because really, I mean, just, you know, I... I like to if I'm going to, for example, when I was writing about Burma or wanting to write about Burma, I would go and I'd hang around in a place or two and give myself enough time to kind of be there and try and understand. Well, you know, you start with what's the terrain, what's the climate? We were talking about your daughter studying geography. I did geography as an undergrad. And it turns out that it's one of the things that informs the questions I ask. Then, okay, so what grows? Then, what do people do with what grows? What don't they have? How do they work around what they don't have? Say they don't have lots of water or they don't have lots of fuel or whatever in a traditional place. And then what do they do with it? And why don't they... Like in Tibet, for example, there's lakes and there's fish in the lakes and some of the lakes and the rivers, but people really don't eat fish. So I try to go without expectations and just it's like this huge planned interrogation over the whole globe for me, you know? Whoa. How did this bunch of people get salt? Because there wasn't any where they lived. Oh, they had to trade for it. Who was coercive with them? You know, what did they have to trade in order to get the salt? You know, how was power exerted in India by the British? Partly by taxing salt, you know, all of those stories. And so I didn't want to write a history book. I wanted to because I mean, that's very interesting. But I wanted to be informed by that to then say, okay, how do we survive now? Well we survive up until now by knowing how to preserve excess harvest, by knowing how to put food by for the lean times. So sauerkraut and kimchi and salt pork. And, you know. Okay, well, I guess I need to learn how to make those things and I need to understand what that process is. I need to be in the kitchen, hands on, because I'm a kind of literal person. And, then, well, okay, you make them. But what's the point of making them unless you use them? Well, how do you use them? Well, I have always been a user of fish sauce, for example. I mean, I put fish sauce in my guacamole. Sorry, everybody, if you don't think that's a nice idea, but it really is marvellous, it brings out the smokiness. So how about all these other ingredients that I don't know lots about and. Oh, oh, salt cod. Wow. The things I've... I've done a few things with salt cod, but so much more or... I mean, anyway, the list is endless. And so I feel like I've skated over the surface of the world of salt and I've tried to sort of say, well, I was a beginner and I still am, and you can be a beginner too. And it's not that scary. In fact, it's not scary at all.

MG: Well, what does it mean, the scary bit?

ND: The scary bit is putting something in a jar and saying, I'm going to eat this or I'm going to taste this for the first time in two months, you know?

MG: But also, like, what do we get wrong about salt, do you think? Because salt has... it's like one of those things that has a bad reputation in some way.

ND: Well, yeah, there's all that well, there's the salt in the diner, you know, and we take it for granted. There's that part about salt and then there's the Oh, gosh, you know, we need to... I need to cut back on my salt. And yeah, absolutely. There are people that need to for example, people with kidney disease, you know, should just turn off the radio right now because, you know, it's not fair because they really have to be really careful with their salt intake. The rest of us. If you're cooking at home and not eating processed food, you're going to salt to taste. And if something's too salty, you don't want to eat it. So it's you eat things that are too salty when you get tricked into it, sort of by a combination when there's a lot of sweet as well, you know, we go out and eat our junk food and we know that it's laden with salt and sugar. And there's a really perverse kind of, you know, pleasure in crossing the line. But you don't want to be doing that all the time.

MG: You could imagine that somebody who is coming into this from a distance would say an entire book about salt. Salt is salt. You have three little plates of salt in front of you. Yeah, there are a lot of different kinds of salt that are in the book. Walk us through the different kinds of salt that are there, just as a way to kind of understand the depth of what it is that we're talking about.

ND: Well, so on the one hand, it's shallow. In other words, salt is sodium chloride. And when you add salt to water, it dissolves. And then you really can't tell which kind of salt you add it to the water like it's just salt. But when you have it in your fingers or when you open a jar and you smell it, then you'll notice the textures are different and the smell is different.

[Cross talk]

MG: As so you have a jar and you're taking a pinch out.

ND: And so the first salt here is from Sicily. And there's... It's an old place of salt production, Sicily in the Mediterranean... Island in the Mediterranean. And it's a place that the Phoenicians and the Romans and the Greeks, everybody produced salt there, and they used it to preserve the tuna harvest and lots and lots else. But the tuna harvest is a big thing. And in Trapani in the north, sort of at 11:00 on the island of Sicily, is where the salt is produced. And it's a very interesting place and history out the wazoo. And it's just the layers of history.

MG: I'm going to come over and feel what that salt feels like because it feels different.

ND: I'm going to make a sound, too. And because it's got little square, almost square crystals. It's a course of salt from Trapani... sea salt. Right. But all salt is in fact sea salt from the beginning. I mean, and then some of it, the land mass has changed, things got deposited. And so there's salt underground in land masses, but it all originated in the sea.

MG: The next plate that you have...

ND: Next one is Maldon sea salt. And Maldon became famous to... So those of us who didn't know, who didn't live in England in the nineties and early 2000s because they were well marketed and it's a very nice salt and cookbook author start to write about it and they make various kinds of salt, but it's most famous for its flake salt and these are kind of flat flakes that they boil the salt... I got to visit, actually. I wrote to them and I thought, well, you know, will they believe me? But they did. And they let me come and photograph and I photograph the estuary. They draw water, seawater in from this estuary and the east coast of England in Essex. And then they boil it and they used to boil it over coal fires. Well, you know, you have to put energy into brine in order to get the water to evaporate. So if you don't have sunshine to have the water evaporate, which, let's face it, in England, you don't have reliable sunshine, then you have to boil the water. And so they were boiling over coal fires until the late 1980s.

MG: What would you use that salt for?

ND: Oh, this is a finishing salt. And this is where you care about salt when you smell it, as a cook, when you touch it. But also if you're adding it to sort of a salad or as a finishing salt so that the people eating it, you and others are going to sort of have a little crunch as they bite in and the pleasure of sort of it releasing in your mouth. And so flake salt is the generic term and one version of flake salt is something people call fleur de sel, flour of salt, fleur de sel in Spanish, which is what when you're evaporating by the ocean in the [inaudible] in France, for example, you've got these flat crystals and it's a beautiful surface and that's the most expensive. So there's no point using Maldon salt to salt your pasta water. I mean, what a waste of money. Just use a plain... use of a pickling salt or something like that.

MG: But something like that you can just kind of use just over the top... [cross talk]

ND: You put it in a nice box on the table and then just take a little... invite your guests to take a pinch and you know, like that. And the last one is a Japanese salt and it's a sea salt. It's very slightly sticky. I can feel it with my fingers. I'm running it through my fingers.

MG: It looks a lot more finer...

ND: It's finer. But the fineness of the salt is just the techniques people use for evaporating it. So, at one level it's all very simple and another now there's artisanal salts being made because people are trying to market it in different places. And that's really interesting. But as I say, for your pasta water, just use what you have.

MG: How has the way that we use salt changed over time?

ND: Well, in the I mean, if we're talking about sort of the North European. In the North American world just to start there, because I really don't know a lot about a lot. But people until the second war… people were generally who were not in the cities and even some people in the cities were preserving... They were putting down... The same ways people are still making jam. They were putting down vegetables as well and storing them in brine.

MG: Using what you had now for... [cross talk]

ND: Yeah, because you know that in the winter, you know, heaven help us. And people with milk were making cheese and cheeses another form of salt storage because you salt, you know, you you gosh, I'm not a cheese maker, but there's salt involved in preventing over fermentation, in effect in controlling the fermentation. And so and olives, there's the olives ripe on the tree. There's a fruit that you salt, so you salt it, not some... To preserve it, but also to draw the bitterness out. So Salt has all these roles in flavour preservation mixed up things. And then of course you have your pig if you're in a farm and you're going to slaughter the pig when the weather gets cool and then some of the pig you're going to hang, you're going to salt to prevent, to stop rot, to stop fermentation, and then you're going to hang it so it dries and then you're going to have yummy things to eat that you you may cook or you may eat it uncooked because it's safe to eat because you've preserved it. You know.

MG: You say in the book that and this is a...

ND: Huge world.

MG: You know, it's incredible. But you say that engaging with salt preserved foods can be life changing.

ND: Yes. Because suddenly I was in New York on a book tour last week and somebody asked me a question about how now that food seems to have changed, lost so much flavour, unless you're actually at a farmer's market... In a supermarket it's travelled a long way or it's sat on a shelf for a while. So it doesn't it tastes less, you know. And in winter... And salt preserved ingredients which give some umami… some sort of almost meatiness, a taste of ripeness can basically... You can use them to enhance an ingredient that you're not. You're not. So you don't think this is the best meal you ever had, but if you sprinkle perhaps a flavoured salt on it, or maybe you use some black bean sauce [cross talk] in a stir fry. It's just going to give this whole extra dimension. Things just it's hard to explain, but it makes things taste better as salt brings flavour out these other salted ingredients, sort of even more so not because there's salt here, but because they've got some fermentation and fermentation is flavour. And so suddenly, oh, I can, I can up my game and I can up my game with things I made myself. Or you can go buy [inaudible] credit the store and use that. And it just, I don't know, it's, it's really enlarged my sense of the possible. I'm still just an improviser. I don't usually follow recipes, but I've got a lot more to improvise with. With my salt ingredients.

MG: It feels like fermentation is having a bit of a moment.... Certainly had sauerkraut, kimchi, and he had miso. Miso with the Korean community's kimchi. Not new, but you feel as though it's broken into a different community.

ND: Yeah, there's people sort of taking it for granted instead of it sort of.... It's, put it this way. There are a lot of ingredients that various communities all around the world have used that used to be written in italics or treated as you know. Oh, gosh, what's that? Fish sauce, long ago, until the nineties, you know, people in New York magazine said, oh, that's too strange. So irritating for those of us who have always loved it....

MG: Is that a good thing when food...?

ND: I think it's a very good thing. I think it's a good thing to have respect for other people's techniques and also to never other... I mean, we other people in so many ways. And the last thing we want to do and the kitchen is the place to redeem ourselves and sort of start to understand and have regard for what people in other places have learnt. I mean, we... You know, I say in the book, we stand on the shoulders of all these cooks all around the world. So nothing in this book is new. I'm just trying to say, hey, look, isn't this extraordinary? Let's play, let's engage.

MG: What do we know about the earliest uses of salt?

ND: Oh, Matt, it's really interesting. It was used to purify gold and silver and, you know, in all kinds of other uses. So the archaeology, rabbit holes, I've gone down online mostly, you know, there's an area of study called salt archaeology. They have conferences. You know, I've never been to one, but starting in the late nineties, I think... And so in Romania, in southern Louisiana there were these salt sources. And so people would come in and sort of have a neutral area, people who would normally war would have a neutral area where they would boil, they make clay vessels, fill them with the brine, boil them, and then have the salt to carry away or to trade with.

MG: It was used as a currency.

ND: It was used as a currency. Absolutely. Yeah, used as a currency. And then, yeah, people were also, of course, held hostage. You know, if you don't have salt and I do, I can demand quite a lot from you because you absolutely need it. You know.

MG: There are fascinating recipes in the book that draw on how people in different cultures and communities use salt. One of them is one for salted scallions...

ND: Oh yeah. From the Acadian community. And my friend Simon Thibeault told me about it and he had it in his book. And it was just extraordinary because you think, okay, we're in Nova Scotia, you know, it's 15 something or 16 something, and there's not much that grows in the winter. How can we put flavour by. They had salt and because of the trade with the Caribbean. And so you chop scallions, green onions as we call them in Canada. But I've been in the States last week. Sorry. So scallions comes to mind, chop them and then mix them with salt and then mixing with some more salt and basically put them in a jar and they don't rot. And then you have this sort of the green turns a little. It doesn't stay bright green, but you have this idea of the green onion in your kitchen and you can just reach for it and use it to season things. You can add it to a soup. And it's just... It's more than just salt. It's these slightly fermented green onions and you think, wow,... and there's [inaudible] in there as well. And that's from Quebec. It's sort of a more elaborate version of the same thing, which is chopped, chopped herbs and they have the same thing in Brazil. A Brazilian friend who now lives in Quebec told me about it. And [inaudible] it's called, and again it's a jar. And so you've got your, your herbs in front of you, you don't have to go scavenging. It's sort of a cook's shortcut, but it's also kind of a winter solace, I think, for the lack of green. You know.

MG: You mentioned fish sauce a couple of times... it feels like you could have written an entire book about fish sauce.

ND: That's right. Except, you know, other people no more. But yes, I love it.

MG: There's... In the book, there's a fish sauce love affair. Can you tell me about how you learnt about fish sauce?

ND: Oh, it's so long ago. Yeah, I. I had, I had... I was in France and I, my boyfriend at the time, his uncle was from Vietnam, a doctor from Vietnam who had ended up being in the French army in the second war. And then he went back to Vietnam. And then the French colonial authorities said, you're treating Viet Cong. We can't answer for your safety. So the place he took refuge was this country that had treated him so badly, France. And so I knew him in France. And the discovery of fish sauce as a flavour enhancer. I mean, I just it's just such a magic ingredient.

MG: You said you use it in guacamole.

ND: I put it a little dash, and it's not my entire seasoning. But imagine you've got your avocado. Hopefully it's a nice rope one... you've taken it out and chopped it a bit. And then I put just a quick dash of fish sauce and it just brings out the smokiness and then I'll adjust with a little salt and magic. I mean, it's important to check that none of your guests are allergic to fish. Okay, but if you know that for sure, you don't have to tell them there's fish sauce in there. Right? It's like sliding some anchovies into a slow cooked lamb. You know, you want to make sure your guests aren't allergic to fish. But then the anchovies... if you said anchovies, they'd say, bleh, many people, not me, but many people, but if they just disappear, they melt away and they give this lovely extra flavour.

MG: We sneak it into pasta sauce when the kids were young because it was just… it was extra flavour.

[excited cross talk]

ND: You know, it's so you know, we all cook subterfuge, right. And Cook's tricks. There's all kinds of... I mean, chefs have been using fish sauce and soy sauce and so on long before the general public knew because they thought, yeah, I get this extra oomph from this. Let me do it. You know, now they admit it.

MG: As you started going down the salt rabbit holes... is that right?

ND: Salt trail.

MG: Salt trail, that sounds better. What surprised you the most about what you learnt?

ND: In the end you know, it's that the pairing of it's so simple and yet it's so sophisticated, you know what happens. And the thing that was the biggest sort of individual learning for me, I think, was this ingredient that I have recipes plural for in the book. One very simple, a quick recipe and one that takes a little more elapsed time. No, no more cooks time. And that's shio koji. This... I think of it as a miracle ingredient. Shio koji is basically rice that is fermented slowly in a jar so that... Cooked rice. So it's a sort of soft pale white paste and I put a little smear of it on, on a fillet of fish before I grill it or I can put it on vegetables before I grill them or cook them. And it just pulls out. I guess the equivalent is MSG powder long ago. In other words, that secret thing that makes things taste more. But shio koji is an old, old ingredient. And I was taught it by somebody in rural Japan. So it feels like... I feel like I got sort of a lovely glimpse of the source of it. You know, it's really... But you can also buy jars of shio koji. So no need to get anxious.

MG: What is the best compliment that somebody can give you having read one of your books?

ND: God, I want actually to be giving them confidence and I want to peak their curiosity so they go find out too... If she says, I could do this, what about if I try it with that? You know, I like that notion of, you know, it's the old giving people a fishhook, you know, rather than the fish. I mean, I just give them a recipe rather than giving them the food and then they can make their own. How magic is that?

MG: And what do you hear back from people... Having written a bunch of books, what do you hear back?

ND: Oh, it's very fun. I mean, it is... It's really rewarding, especially now, you know, with Instagram, I... Somebody will post a picture and say... And they'll tag me in it and say, I just made this from, you know, they made it from my Burma book or and I think, Oh, how wonderful. Or I made this from the Burma book, but I substituted, you know, pork for beef or, you know, whatever. I love that, too. It's really I think that's what I want. I just want people to find their confidence and enjoy. And if they aren't cooking for it, if they're just reading, that's also.... I mean, really, it's up to them. It's always up to them. I'm just putting it out there.

MG: We are the beneficiaries of your curiosity. Thank you very much.

ND: Thanks, Matt. What a pleasure.

MG: Salt. That interview first aired in October. That is The Current for this Wednesday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. I'm going to be off for the next little bit. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Hope you have a chance to catch your breath with friends and family. It has been a year and I think everybody could do with a bit of a deep breath and reset for the next year ahead. We were talking with people earlier who are trying to get on or off of flights in order to make it to loved ones in time for the holidays. As I was saying, this is a big time when people are coming home and on the move. Tomorrow is projected to be the biggest travel day at airports across this country, weather permitting, he said. So as you pack your bags and cross your fingers that the trips aren't delayed or worst cancelled, perhaps this tune can be your soundtrack. It's Mr. Bing Crosby. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you soon.

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Wednesday December 21, 2022 Full Transcript

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