Published November 11, 2010 on the torontostar.com.
Few people in Toronto can say they have a bread-baker or a beekeeper as a neighbour. Residents of the Cliffside community located above the Scarborough Bluffs can say they have both.
Five years ago, Camelia Proulx’s husband built a brick oven in their backyard. They started baking bread and were hooked — and so were their neighbours. Their backyard bread-baking enterprise, known as the Cliffside Hearth, makes 12 varieties of bread, sells some of it wholesale to two retail locations and is currently looking to move into its own storefront.
“We want to stay in the community where this whole seed started to grow and to carry it through,” says Proulx in a phone interview. She and her husband have lived in the neighbourhood for more than 20 years. “All of these people in the community have taken so much interest and have been so supportive with what we do.”
Brian Halweil, author of Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market notes in his book that interest in local food is increasing, as are the number of farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture. Buying bread from the neighbours is as local as it’s going to get.
“It’s a slow food process, it’s like the way my father would have baked bread, or my mother who grew up in the country in Quebec. It takes hours and hours from start to finish to make a loaf of bread,” says Proulx, whose bread has no additives, no preservatives, no GMOs, and uses organic ingredients whenever possible.
That should bode well for attracting customers. A study published in the Journal of the Canadian Dietetic Association examined the level of consumer awareness about nutrition labels across Canada, and found that nearly three-quarters of respondents thought nutrition was “very” or “extremely” important when making food choices.
And Proulx isn’t the only one recognizing this trend. Just one street over Claire Arfin is doing something similar with beekeeping.
Two years ago she didn’t know much about bees, but today she has six hives, and has produced 700 jars of honey this year alone. In the summer, she leaves jars of the sweet stuff on her front porch so neighbours can come by, leave six dollars and take a jar to go.
But can the Cliffside community succeed in supporting local food production?
A study published in the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture examined 115 farmers’ markets in New York, and found that when producers and consumers interact, the bonds of local identity and solidarity are reinforced.
So far, in Cliffside the impact has been nothing but positive.
“If someone stole six dollars or a jar of honey they must have really needed it or they’re just silly kids who don’t know any better. Nothing has happened to me that way,” said Arfin in a phone interview.
As residents enjoy their neighbours’ tasty passions, this burgeoning neighbour-to-neighbour business exchange is helping build a cohesive community — one loaf and one jar at a time.
