Cooking By Degrees

Where Canada’s top college and university chefs share their favourite recipes.

Across the country, college and university chefs feed thousands and thousands of students every day… even during a pandemic. For chefs and students, it’s all about nutrition, quality and affordability.

For an institution’s integrity, food services are vital and growing in importance. Students say the reputation of an institution’s food service highly influences their decision to apply for admission there.

In fact, the drive for hospitality excellence has slowly sparked a campus food revolution in Canada, resulting in institutions hiring some of the most skilled chefs around.

The Toronto Star has teamed up with the Canadian College and University Food Service Association to offer Cooking By Degrees, the chefs’ favourite recipes, for readers to make at home.

Chefs from each institution have shared a recipe that highlights quality Canadian ingredients — and is easy to make. Every feature includes the chef’s profile, the recipe of choice and a photo of the finished item, and some background about the key commodity in the recipe.

The features for Cooking By Degrees are written by journalist Owen Roberts, an award-winning agri-food communications specialist and immediate past-president of the 5,000-member International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

Through Owen’s interviews, the chefs explain how they developed their menu item, and underline their commitment to nutritious, quality, affordable Canadian food.

Photos by Vijay Nair | Executive Chef, University of Guelph

Recipe preparation & testing by Jason Hill | Sous Chef, University of Guelph

CCUFSA liaison by Mark Kenny | Senior Manager, Procurement, Planning & Operations | University of Guelph

Writing & stories by Owen Roberts | Lecturer and Director | Dr. Jim Evans Agricultural Communications Initiative University of Illinois